Fearless
by notmanos
Summary: Logan's mind & body start falling apart after a demon attack,and he ends up with a woman under siege by dark forces. The race is on to survive the night.
1. Part 1

Disclaimer:The character of Logan & all X Men is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. Bob is still mine - hands off. 

N.B.: Takes place shortly after the "X Men" movie, and Sleepers. 

    FEARLESS 

    1 

    Logan had been wondering when she was going to cut to the chase. 

It was funny how, in a bar as packed as this one, she would zero in on him. Not that he was complaining - if he had to have company,at least she was gorgeous. She was a young Indonesian woman - twenty two at the oldest - with bronze skin and almond shaped chocolate brown eyes, her long black hair, as sleek as a panther's pelt, held back by a clip studded with emeralds and rubies. She was wearing a tight red leather mini-dress that showed off what cleavage she had, and a compact but curvaceous body that definitely put her in the knock out category. He would have loved to have left with her, if it wasn't for a tiny little detail. "So what do you say?" She purred, leaning close to be heard over the music and the voices of the crowd. He felt her breast press up against his arm, and he knew she was doing that on purpose. 

It didn't matter that this was a shitty little dive just over the Canadian border - it was a Friday night, and even people in one horse towns wanted to get shitfaced. The mirror behind the bar had been long since broken, replaced by neon signs advertising inferior beers, but Logan knew what he would see if it existed. Or, more correctly, what he wouldn't see. "Do you really wanna fuck,or do you just want my blood?" He wondered, taking a gulp of his watery beer. 

She sat back slightly on her vinyl stool,copper painted lips curving up in a disbelieving smile as she raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean?" 

He sighed, shaking his head. "Darlin', I know you're a vampire, okay? So cut the shit." 

She feigned a startled laugh,bringing a hand  to her delicate throat. "Vampire? Oh, that's funny. You're such a card." 

"Hon, you smell like a vamp. Shall we go into the bathroom and see if you have a reflection?" 

"I do not! I smell like White Linen!" She protested, then scowled, aware the jig was up. "Fuck, what are you? You smell like a Human." 

"I am, I'm just a mutant with a good sense of smell who's tangled with a few vamps in my lifetime." 

"Shit," she muttered, tapping her claw like long black fingernails impatiently on the scarred wooden bar. Her flirtatious nature was gone in the blink of an eye. "Figures I'd pick the one mutant in the bar." 

"So you're just after my blood, huh?" 

"I'm not interested in men." 

"Except for their blood." 

"Well, it's all your good for. No offense." 

He snorted a laugh, and shrugged. "We ain't all that bad." 

"A man turned me into this." 

"Oh. Well, we ain't all vampires." 

She shrugged and looked away, scoping the room for a stupider victim."As much as I hate these dirtbags," he told her. "I'm not gonna let you feed. You're gonna have to go somewhere else." 

She turned back to him, her formerly warm eyes now icy cold and predatory. "And why do you think  you can stop me, mutant?" 

He finished his beer and set his mug down before he bothered to answer her. "I have three perpetually sharp, nine inch adamantium blades in each of my hands, and superhuman reflexes. I could cut off your head right this second, before you could even blink. If you wanna test me, fine, but otherwise I'm content to let you walk away." 

She looked at his face, then his hand resting on the bar. "You're serious, aren't you?" 

"They called me the decapitator in Los Angeles." 

She blinked in surprise, although she tried to be cool about it, returning to studying his hand like it might suddenly erupt into violent action independent of its owner. "How could you have nine inch blades in your hands? They don't look that big." 

"They retract all the way to my forearm. Hey, why don't we skip the anatomy lesson, and go straight to the slicing?" 

He stared at her, and for a moment they had a little contest, as if to see who would blink first. She obviously wasn't sure if she believed him or not, and while he had no qualms about icing a bloodsucker, it would be a shame to dust one this pretty, especially surrounded by uglier humans asking for it. Finally, she challenged the only thing she could. "If they come out of your hands, why don't you have any scars?" 

"I heal real fast. Now, are we gonna throw down, or are you gonna live to bite another day?" 

She looked dubiously between his face and his hands, but finally she decided to err on the side of caution. "Are all you mutants this rude?" 

"No more than vampires." 

That made her roll her eyes and frown sourly as she swiveled away on the stool and stood up, pulling down her poor excuse for a skirt. "Great. Thanks for the warning." 

"Stay away from lumberyards," he suggested, with a sarcastic smile. 

She gave him the finger and stormed out of the bar, a couple guys near the door turning to watch her ass as she left. He wondered if the stupid rednecks would follow her, but no, they stuck to their beers. Lucky for them - he was in no mood to rescue them. 

He wasn't in the mood for anything. The beers here sucked, the vamp had been the only good looking woman here, and the smell of the crowd was starting to get to him. He didn't have a hotel room in town - he was just trying to keep going for as long as he could, only staying in one place for a day if he was so tired he was going to fall down or if he found some attractive and willing company for the night. Otherwise he'd been on the road straight since his disappointing evening with Jean ... shit, how long ago was it? Again, he hadn't been paying much attention to the days as they slipped past him like so much grey scenery on the side of the road. He was letting his own inertia carry him, and yet he was perfectly aimless. He was pretty sure he was in America due to the accents and the quality of the beer, but it was equally possible he was just in a border town; time and location were becoming loose variables, mutable and fluid and perfectly meaningless. The only difference he could see was in the secondary language you needed to know - in Canada it was French ( except in Quebec, where it was English ); in the U. S. it was Spanish. He was beginning to get the idea there were more vamps in the States too, but it was generally a warmer climate. But how odd was that - wouldn't vamps rather be where it was more likely to be dark? And he was led to believe they really didn't give too much of a good goddamn about the temperature. Maybe it was habit, or maybe they thought they could get lost easier in the more populous States, both, or neither. Far be it from him to understand this demon shit. 

The neon beer clock on the far wall said it was about ten to midnight, and he figured he'd wasted enough time - might as well get back on the road. There was nothing for him here, and it didn't look like he was getting laid tonight, so there was no point in swilling down beer that was a step removed from piss and putting up with the stink of too many men. 

The air outside was heavy with industrial pollution - rural burg or not, it had an economy built around a pulp mill - but was unseasonably warm and windy; a storm was kicking up, something all lashing rain and howling winds. It was a good thing he'd be leaving ahead of it, because it'd probably knock out the power for a little town like this, and if it was dreary now, he couldn't even imagine it without electricity. 

He got on his bike and just randomly decided to head West as the clouds scudded across the face of the moon, blocking it out, and a gust of wind made the traffic lights sway on their cable like they were about to be sent flying off into the night. The wind was at his back as he drove, though, giving him even more of a sense of speed, although he was wary about using the "hyperdrive" ( or whatever the fuck it actually was ) right now - that combined with a windstorm could be just asking for a crack up. 

There was a rhythm to driving, a sort of road hypnosis that set in quickly and was soothing enough that he didn't really miss sleep. Well, not when he didn't think about it. 

A depressed collection of closed down shops gave way to strip malls and then weedy vacant lots that rippled like a choppy ocean in the wake of the winds. Soon he was driving through wilderness, scrub pines and wild oaks, an assortment of tough trees and shrubs that could live almost anywhere, no matter the climate or the state of the soil. Reminded him of himself, in a way - those suckers just didn't die. 

Time fled past him in a dark blur, and he was well into road hypnosis when he caught a blur out of the corner of his eye, coming at him from the sloping hill of woods on his right. He put on the brakes and deliberately slewed to the left, so he spun out but never lost control as the bike screeched to a stop, and he avoided hitting the body that had just landed with a wet thud in the road before him - if he hadn't done what he did, the body would have hit him before he could have had a chance to hit it. 

The body was that of a young man whose eyes had been gored out of their sockets, and whose chest had been slit open neck to crotch - it didn't look like he had any internal organs left. He'd been gutted and cleaned like a deer? But hunters usually didn't take out the eyes ... not human ones. 

As soon as he shut off the engine, he could hear a noise coming from the woods: crunching, like bones being ground and snapped beneath a wheel. The stink of blood and demon was almost overpowering - either that, or the septic tank of a slaughterhouse had blown up. He considered, for a moment, just driving on, but the fucker had almost kayoed him with a body, whether he meant to or not. He couldn't let that go, could he? 

He left his bike on the shoulder of the road, and hiked off into the woods, following the noisome trail of the demon. Not that it was difficult - along with the stink and the blood, there was a trail of broken branches and shrubs leading up the hill, leading to an artificially created clearing of fallen trees and torn up bushes, now littered with various body parts. 

In the center of the clearing, sitting on a rock and gnawing on a severed arm like a chicken leg was one butt ugly demon. It looked like it was carved from pure obsidian, skin not so much scaled as shaled, layered like shingles on a roof, and while it was a biped, it had wide, hunched shoulders that suggested it either had extra shoulder sockets, or something odd on its back. It had a head shaped like a light bulb, hairless and lacking several features, but it had two brightly yellow eyes that swept back towards its tiny pointed ears like ski goggles, and a wide mouth with at least three concurrent rows of ivory, needle like teeth. Hard to tell if it had really long, slender fingers, or they just tapered into ebony claws. "What is it with you demons gettin' off on playin' with your food?" He wondered. 

It stopped gnawing on the ulna long enough to look at him, making a high pitched hissing noise related to a dental drill, and a flap of skin around its skinny neck suddenly frilled upwards, making it look like some kind of Jurassic Park reject. 

It moved so fast he didn't actually see it move; it was there one half second, and then he felt its claws slash his arm, tearing away a huge hunk of flesh, and also slash his stomach, but the good part about wearing layers was it ended up with more cloth than skin. "I got claws too, ya fuck," he snarled, ignoring the pain of his slashed arm as he lashed out with his own hand at the black blur, popping his claws and making contact even as the blur moved away. 

Its skin was hard as granite, but his claws cut through it with little resistance,and it let out an ear shattering screech as they both staggered back and something hit the ground. He thought it was the arm it was gnawing on, but that arm hadn't been black as ink, or pumping a thick fluid that looked like syrup and smelled like citric acid gone sour. How ironic - he'd cut off one of its arms. 

His arm really hurt; it was throbbing like an infected wound, and he knew from the amount of blood still pouring down his hand that the cut had been very deep; it had tried to take his arm off as well, but its claws couldn't slice through adamantium. Still, it hurt like fuck, and why was it still bleeding so much? Maybe it had severed an artery. 

With an angry shriek it was on him again, plowing into his midsection and sending him falling to the loamy floor of the forest, but even as he lost the air in his lungs, he reacted out of pure instinct, punching a claw through its abdomen as it screeched in his face, trying to bite him, its carrion scented breath making him feel nauseous. He got his knees up and kicked it off, letting his claw rip clean down the center of its chest before he sent it straight into the trunk of the nearest tree, which it hit with a hollow thud. 

But that didn't even slow it down. Either it was too vicious or too stupid ( or both ) to realize it couldn't win a fight with only one arm and a bisected chest, because it came right back for him, barely giving Logan a chance to take a breath before it rebounded back screaming, going straight for his eyes. 

He was tired of this and his arm hurt, so he put an end to this. As it lunged for him, he slashed out, straight through its neck. The head went flying, and when it hit the ground, it started rolling for the bottom of the hill. The body, meanwhile, continued its one armed lunge for him, so he simply snagged its wrist and threw it aside, letting its own built up momentum take it as far as it could. 

Logan then curled up in a ball, around his own slashed right arm. It was not only throbbing but burning, yet not like the healing process was under way - this was a different burning, acid as opposed to flame. He could feel a mimicking throb where it had broke the skin of his stomach, but the cuts were shallow, and so was the ache. It was still bleeding, but he couldn't tell if it was more than before, or less. Should it still be bleeding? How deep was the cut? 

He struggled to his feet and almost stumbled, and was forced to grab the tree to keep his balance. His head was swimming, and he felt ... funny. The only word for it was funny. His right arm hung limp at his side, and he looked at it. 

It was covered in blood, from the gash above the elbow to his fingertips. Beneath the torn fabric and flesh, he could still see a glint of silver, the adamantium of a bone, and he knew that should have healed by now, or at least the wound should have started to close a lot faster than it was. He smelled something sour in the wound, something that smelled like the acrid blood of the demon, but he couldn't be sure it was coming from just the wound since it was splattered on his clothes. He looked down at the tatters of his flannel shirt and the once white t-shirt beneath,and saw there had been four tiny, parallel slashes that had all but healed, leaving only the blood behind. Well, that was good, wasn't it? 

The dizziness seemed to get worse. It was like the rotation of the Earth had speeded up, and he could feel it trying to slip away from him under his feet. He clung to the tree for dear life, like it was the only thing that kept him going airborne, and when the wind gusted, making the branches undulate violently above his head, he suddenly wondered if getting blown away was an actual possibility. Wouldn't that be funny? 

He decided to try and walk away - there was no telling how many of these things there were; after all, there were the parts of at least ten different people scattered around here - but after his first step, his knee seemed to give way, and he pitched face first into the dirt. 

Okay, something was really wrong here.Why was his healing factor reacting so slowly to the big injury? Why did he feel like he was about to pass out? His mind - which seemed to be lost; somehow chasing its own tail inside his skull - suddenly churned up the memory of Krek, although it took him a moment to place the name. 

Krek - demon with some kind of neurotoxin in him. He almost killed him with it. It didn't feel like Krek's neurotoxin ... exactly. But close. So this demon had some kind of venom or poison, something his healing factor was having a hard time dealing with? Didn't matter - he wasn't dying. He was just a little sick was all - his immune system would adapt, given enough time. 

Logan decided he give himself another minute, and then he'd try and stand up again. 

2 

    She was so busy checking the rearview mirror for anyone following her, she forgot to check the road ahead of her. 

Well, this was a road in the middle of nowhere, so what was likely to be out here, especially at this time of night? If there was another way out of this goddamn town she'd have taken it, but the problem with towns this small was there was usually little choice in the means of access. If only it had even a tiny airport, she'd have convinced someone to fly her the fuck out of here. 

Of course, she was assuming she hadn't lost her mind. Maddie was relatively sure she was living up to her nickname now - mad as a fucking hatter. That was the only explanation, wasn't it? People just didn't come back from the dead, not in real life. And if she wasn't insane ... well, shouldn't she be? It was better than the alternative - that this was actually happening. 

Another glance in the mirror allowed her to see a motorcycle sitting on the side of the road, as if the driver had parked it there to take a piss or something. Still, it was weird - what an odd looking bike. That was when it felt like she ran over something. 

What the fuck? Roadkill? 

She looked back to see, and that's when she caught movement in the dark in her peripheral vision. She stomped on the brakes, but not in time - her car plowed into something hard enough to set off her airbag. She couldn't help but yelp as it exploded in her face, and she heard the crunch of metal and the tinkle of broken glass as it rained down on the asphalt. What the fuck did she hit, a deer? 

She sat that for a moment, trying to will her heartbeat to slow down, then punched down the airbag and got out of the car, wondering what she was about to see splattered all over the pavement. Oh god, if it was a deer, she'd kill herself. But she didn't see it! And besides, were there that many deer around here? 

There was no deer. The right front side of the Camry was crumpled in completely, the headlight shattered and gone, but in the light of the single beam she saw a body nearly twenty feet down the road. A human body. 

Her heart stopped, and she forgot to breathe. She hit a person? Holy fuck - where did he come from? Oh shit, was he the biker? 

"Mister, I am so sorry," she said, finally remembering how to speak. The fact that you needed to breathe to do so made it initially difficult. "But fuck, I'm the only car on the road, and it's pitch black out here! You got eyes, right?" 

He wasn't moving. He was just laying splayed on his back in the center of the road, and ... was that blood? His arm was black with blood. Oh Christ - had she killed him? How could she? It was a Toyota, for Christ's sake! Had a Toyota ever killed anything larger than possum? Look at the damage he did to her front end - it was like she'd hit a bridge abutment, not a person. How much damage could she do? 

"Guy? Look, I'm sorry, I didn't see you," she said, approaching the body warily. She was hoping he'd snap up and start cursing her out, maybe threaten to sue her, but he just continued to lay there. He could sue her and take all of the nothing she had if he'd just wake up and not be dead. 

But he wasn't moving, and the closer she got, the more she became convinced she'd killed him. She felt queasy. "Please don't be dead," she moaned, wondering if she was going to toss her cookies right here. It occurred to her she had more than enough dead people in her life and almost laughed, but she knew she'd lose what little was left of her mind if she started. 

There was something wrong about him. Maybe it was the fact that he had close cropped sideburns, and she had never seen facial hair like that on a guy in person; maybe it was the fact that it was a warm night and he appeared to be wearing two shirts, a denim jacket, and a leather one; maybe it was the fact that the stomach had been ripped out of all the shirts ( could the car have done that? ), and then the sleeve of everything had been nearly ripped off his bloody right arm. That gash was too high up for the car to have done that ... right? 

Oh, how the fuck did she know? She'd never run anyone over before. 

It was kind of funny, in a sick, sad sort of way. As if she didn't have enough problems in her life, here's one more. 

This was a nightmare; this had to be a nightmare. It was the only logical explanation. 

She crouched down beside the body, and tried to see if he was breathing or not. She really couldn't tell. But his head wasn't split open - there was some blood, but he didn't seem to be openly bleeding. That was good ... except dead people didn't bleed, did they? Oh shit. 

She put her head on his chest, and heard an erratic but very solid heartbeat; it sounded like his heart was trying to pound its way through his ribcage. Was that good? Well, at least it meant he was still alive. 

Maddie sat back on her haunches and tried to figure out her next move. She could flee the scene, couldn't she? There was nobody else out here, and he was alive ... she could always make an anonymous call to nine one one - they couldn't trace cell phone calls, could they? He could have just wiped out on his bike ... except it was parked. Well, if he was some kind of biker, maybe they'd think he got attacked by a rival biker of some sort. That happened, right? Oh fuck - if he remembered what actually happened, she was screwed. The best thing to do was just to call nine one one now, and throw herself on the general mercy of the cops - it was an accident on a deserted road after midnight. Surely they couldn't hold her responsible for this, when pedestrians never should have been out here in the first place. 

She was trying to remember where she put her phone when the guy's eyes shot open. 

It startled her so much she yelped and fell back on her ass on the road, scooting away from him out of reflex ( well, if she'd been hit by a car, she wouldn't be too friendly towards the driver ). He moved his left hand, bringing it up to his head, but he didn't make any other movements, certainly none towards her. He groaned as if in pain, and she said, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't move. After accidents, people aren't supposed to move, right?" She felt like an idiot - all she had was questions without answers. 

He muttered something that sounded like,"I can move," ( or was that "I can't move," ) but his words were so slurred it was hard to make the syllables out. Was he drunk? Well, of course he was drunk - who else would be wandering on a road at this time of night? But he didn't smell like beer; he only smelled like blood. 

She stood up, and said, "I'm gonna call an ambulance, okay? Just stay here." What a stupid thing to say - what was he going to do, jump to his feet and run off? 

But she had just reached her car when he sat up, holding his head in his hands. He was moving okay, although he was obviously in pain. At least she hadn't killed him. He said something that could have been, "I need an ambulance," or "I don't need an ambulance," - again, his words were slurred. If he wasn't drunk, that could be the sign of a head injury, couldn't it? Shit! 

She got in the driver's side, leaving the door ajar, and dug her cell phone out of her purse. As if that wasn't enough drama in itself, she activated it, only to have it make a brief bleeping sound, and turn itself off: no power. She'd forgotten to charge it. 

"Shit!" She snapped, angrily throwing the thing in the back seat. It always had to be like this, didn't it? Not one thing could go wrong, oh no - everything had to go wrong at once. Like it was cheating to have a single goddamn thing go right. 

Well, there were no places within walking distance. She could drive back to town, call from the 7-11, but she didn't want to drive back to that fucking town! What if Steve was waiting for her? And could she leave this guy by himself? Would he even believe she was leaving to call for help? What if he thought she was just driving off? ( Still a tempting thought ...  ) 

Maddie was about to shout to him that she had to drive into town to get help when suddenly a man appeared, opening the driver's side door wide enough to wedge himself in there. "Hello - Madison, I presume?" The man said, leering at her. He was tall, young, and black haired, good looking in a high school jock sort of way, and wearing a long black coat that seemed to be as unseasonably warm as all the layers of clothes the biker was wearing. 

She glared at him, quickly glancing to see if he had any weapons displayed. So far, no. "Who the fuck are you?" She asked angrily. She didn't dare show any fear. 

But the man's leering grin widened, like he knew her fearlessness was an act. "I'm the fuck Rod, a friend of Steve's. And he doesn't like little bitches who steal from him." 

"I didn't steal anything from that prick," she snapped, wondering where he came from, and if Steve was with him. Steve didn't have a lot of friends, and she was sure she'd met them all, but she'd never seen this asshole before in her life. "And fuck you too." She grabbed the car door handle and slammed it with all her might. 

Rod let out a startled cry of pain as he was smashed between the door and the frame, and quickly rebounded out of the danger area, but he recovered faster than she ever expected. Before she could get the door properly shut, he shoved an arm through the driver's side window, shattering it into a million pieces all over her, and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, yanking her hard against the door and making it fall open again as he pulled her out onto the street. 

"That's pretty lame, you stupid bitch," Rod growled, as he threw her back violently against the car, never letting go of her throat. She could feel blood dribbling down her face from the glass cuts, and they stung, but the pain was forgotten as soon as she saw what had happened to Rod's face. 

His eyes, which had been blue just a moment before, were now yellow with pinpricks for pupils, and his Hollywood perfect teeth were now a jagged mess of ivory fangs, seemingly too many for so small a mouth. His forehead had pushed forward too, so much it looked like he had a sloping caveman's brow. He didn't look human, and his breath smelled of decay and blood. She was so startled she just stared at him. "What the fuck are you?" She asked, genuinely curious. 

He sniggered, as if that was a stupid question. "The guy who's going to start breaking every bone in your pretty little body if you don't tell me where the Dragon's Eye is." 

"What? What the fuck are you talking about? What's the Dragon's Eye?" Sometimes things just got so surreal the only logical thing to do was give up. You could lose your mind trying to reason out the unreasonable. 

He rolled those bright yellow eyes of his, and snarled, "Don't try the stupid act, cunt." 

Okay, that was it. She could put up with almost anything, but no one called her a cunt. She brought her knee up as hard as she could into his groin, and as his breath left him in a pained "oof", she punched him in the side of the head. She mostly just got his ear, but it still hurt her hand. "Are you a mutant, is that it?" She asked, shoving him away. "Do you think you could scare me with your parlor tri - " 

But she never got to finish the sentence. Rod recovered almost instantly, grabbing her throat in a crushing grip and slamming her back against the car, this time pinning her with his body so she couldn't move. He was a lot stronger than she would have ever thought, and oh god, he looked furious. "Stupid little bloodbag!" He spat in her face, his fetid breath making her wince. "Did you think you could actually hurt me? I bet you did - acting dumb isn't an act for you, is it? You are dumb - you're a stupid little cunt who doesn't even realize what she has. Am I a mutant? A mutant?! I - " 

He suddenly stopped and stiffened, making a gasping noise as three metal prongs suddenly exploded through the base of his throat. She thought that was something he was doing somehow until the prongs ripped to the side, and Rod exploded into a pillar of dust as soon as his head toppled bloodlessly from his shoulders. 

She was left staring at the bloody biker, who retracted the knives back into his bleeding hand. "He wasn't a mutant," the man said, glazed eyes barely focused on her. "I am." And with that, the biker collapsed face first onto the asphalt. 

3 

    Maddie looked down at the man, and considered the possibility he was joking. 

Oh sure - yes he was joking. He had knives in his hands - didn't everyone have knives in their hands? And what about Rod - since when did people explode into dust when their heads got chopped off? He didn't even bleed. 

( Dead people don't bleed ... ) 

Okay, this was all too fucking strange. As if Steve, somehow coming back from the dead, wasn't strange enough. ( Maybe Rod had come back from the dead too. He'd said he was a friend of his ... ) She rubbed her sore throat, looked around, and realized there may have been movement in the darkness around her. Maybe. Or was she being paranoid? 

Damn it! She knew she was being followed. What the hell was a "dragon's eye", and why did he think she had it? Like she'd ever touch a goddamn eyeball! 

She considered leaving the biker here - he admitted to being a mutant; he'd probably be fine - but hadn't he just saved her life, possibly? Maybe? And was he in any shape - knife hands or not - to fight off anymore things like Rod. And most of all, he knew what the hell he was - she didn't. She didn't have the slightest idea what was after her or why; maybe he knew what a "dragon's eye" was. 

Maddie carefully stepped over the biker ( but she couldn't avoid the dust that was all that was left of Rod ), and opened her back door. She then reached down and grabbed knife guy by the shoulders, and almost gave herself an instant hernia. "Fuck - how heavy are you?" She exclaimed, shocked. He looked about what, two hundred pounds? He felt about twice that. 

He groaned something, coming back to a semblance of semi-consciousness, and he got up to his knees, trying to shrug her off. But she must have hurt him, because his movements were slow, like someone trapped in quicksand. "You're gonna have to help me," she told him. "You're too heavy for me to budge. And let's get a move on, huh? I think we're about to have company." The wind had picked up, and was lashing the trees around so violently she couldn't say for sure if they were being slowly descended upon by shadows ... but she was willing to bet the twenty bucks in her wallet that Rod was just the scout of this expedition. 

But why? Fuck - what the hell had she done? Except have bad taste in men - which was honestly bad enough. 


	2. Part 2

He moved, slowly, but he managed only to partly lean on her as she partly shoved him ( and he partially collapsed ) on her back seat. He said something that sounded like "Poison," before his eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he sagged back onto the seat. 

Was he calling her poison? That was a downright ungrateful thing to say. Okay, she had hit him with her car, and maybe that was true in general, but still it seemed mean, especially at the moment. She bent his legs up to fit and shut him in, quickly getting into the driver's seat and slamming the door, trying her best to ignore the fact that she was sitting on a lot of shattered safety glass. At least these were heavy denim jeans; she could barely feel it. 

She brushed away the blood trickling into her eyebrow and even though she knew she had wasted gas, she was glad she never shut off the engine as she gunned it. Only then did she glance in the rearview mirror, and thought she spied dark movement on the road behind them - dark movement and yellow eyes. 

Maddie blamed the shiver on the fact that she no longer had a driver's side window.   

She heard metal briefly scrape the pavement before it stopped, and she wondered if the fact that he was so heavy somehow correlated to the damage done to the front end of her car. Would the weight of a person make a difference? Would the fact that a person was a mutant? How? 

She had the gas pedal almost all the way down to the floor, but they were barely cresting ninety, and she could feel the car shuddering, lugging down, the engine sounding like a leaf blower on the verge of exploding. She'd bought the car used and had admittedly never treated it well;it just wasn't made for going long distances very fast. She eased off, letting the speedometer settle in the upper eighties - that would have to do. The car would do them no good if the engine suddenly blew out. "Hey," she shouted over the insistent hum of the straining motor. "Hey dude, I think you're supposed to be conscious, okay? So wake up! What's your name? Tell me your name." She paused, glanced at him in the mirror; he hadn't moved. One hand still on the wheel, she reached back and lightly hit him, trying to avoid his bloody arm. "Come on guy, speak to me!" 

He jolted and his head lolled to the other side, but otherwise he remained as before. "I'm Madison Thackeray. Who are you?" Belatedly, she realized giving him her real name might not have been such a great idea. Oh well - in the state he was in, would he ever remember it? 

He muttered something, but it was hard to say what. "You'll have to speak up," she prompted. 

He still muttered something totally incoherent. If he was seriously injured she was going to have to get him some medical attention. Not all mutants were super powered superhero types, right? She wished she had paid more attention to the news. Had there ever been anything about yellow eyed guys who came back from the dead on the news? 

The wind blew so hard it felt like it was trying to shove the car off the road; she had to fight the steering wheel to keep heading straight. Again, there couldn't be just one thing wrong. "What was that guy?" She shouted. "Rod. Why did he explode?" 

He muttered something that sounded a lot like, "Vampire." Well, it couldn't have been "Umpire". 

"You're kidding, right?" There was no answer - he could have lost consciousness again, or he wasn't deigning to answer such a stupid question. "Vampires exist? Does that mean werewolves and ghosts exist too?" 

He muttered something that could have been "Not one" or "I know one". She didn't know which was the worst possible answer. 

"Not mutants?" 

It sounded like he agreed. 

"You fought them before?" Another grunt that sounded like an affirmative. Was this stranger than anything else going on? Besides, that would explain why Steve came back from the dead - he wasn't Human. He always was a heartless bastard. 

Another affirmative grunt. "Wood kills them?" Again, a sort of yes. She wondered if she had anything wooden in the trunk. "You don't have any wood on you, do you?" 

And that was when the shooting started. 

4 

    Even out on the waves, he could feel the surveillance. 

It wasn't just people watching him from the beach - that had a different feel. No, this was intense scrutiny, far from friendly. 

It was a bright, warm day, and Bondi Beach was crowded; the fact that the Promenade had been recently reopened also added to the amount of people milling about. There were some killer waves too, but they were so large and erratic, only the brave, the pros, and the stupid were out in the water. That was fine with Bob, as he didn't have much competition for the good breakers, but he supposed it helped make him stand out too. He let all those watching and surfing think he wiped out, go head first into the sapphire ocean, while in truth he went down belly first on his board, grabbing the sides before porting onto the beach, right in front of the man watching him. It was always difficult to 'port yourself into a different position, but hey, if he could figure out the dimension thing, he could do that. 

He managed to pop back into the world standing up, board standing on end beside him,and for a second the man didn't even register him. When he finally did see him, his jaw went slack, and Bob felt a surge of power, which he quickly squelched. "So you're a teleporter too, huh?" He didn't have to make it a question - he had the man - but he liked to keep up appearances.  Of course, they were visible to no one else on the beach, not even the woman twelve feet away, sunbathing and blasting Coldplay on her CD player ( a hard group to blast, them ). 

"Yes." He was an Aussie mutant at least - sounded like he came from Melbourne. To be fair, Ben - his name was Ben Chen, poor guy ( he bet his rhyming name got him made fun of in school ) - had tried to dress to fit in. He was wearing a bright blue Hawaiian shirt, open at the neck, white walking shorts and flip flops, with a straw hat to shade his eyes. There was nothing about him that screamed "mutant", much like Rogue and Jean ( he figured Logan's hair had a superhuman quality that gave him away ) - he was just a reasonably handsome Chinese man who could have been a tourist, or an Ozzie out enjoying the weather. 

But then again, Bob knew he looked like nothing more than a surfie with a strange board and really loud shorts, and what a lie that was. 

"The Organization is stalking me?" 

"We have you under covert surveillance." 

"I see. Why? Do you think I'm a mutant?" 

"Yes." 

"What sort?" 

"A reality warper, possibly with some kind of telepathic abilities." 

Bob laughed. "A reality warper? Mate, I'm offended - I'm better than that!" But how could they know that? He'd been surely caught with the "X Men" and they just assumed. He couldn't blame them. "So what's the deal? Are you gonna try and grab me?" 

"No - we are just to gather intelligence; we are not to make any hostile moves towards you, since your abilities appear to be overwhelming." 

"Like you wouldn't believe," he agreed. "So does the Org have a base of operations around here?" 

Before he could answer, Bob felt an overwhelming power wash over him, and everything froze - the people, the sea birds, even the ocean, the waves coming crashing to the shore freezing in mid curl. Bob willed the music from the woman's stereo to continue because it was a pretty good CD - reminded him of Radiohead - before turning to face the woman standing up the beach, about twenty five feet from him. "Hey Eris, how's it hanging?" 

Eris was trying to fit in too, despite the lack of audience - in the form of a lovely woman with cocoa brown skin and long, curly black hair that spilled down her back. She was wearing a red tank top and a red and orange sarong wrapped around her waist, but nothing else. If people could see her, they would have stopped and gawked at just how lovely she was, possibly never noticing that where her eyes should have been were black spaces full of stars. "Playing with the Humans again?" 

He shrugged. "It's something to do. What brings you around these parts, love? I thought you swore off the Humans with everyone else." 

"I did. I'm here about something else." 

"Oh?" He brushed the wet hair out of his eyes, and let his hair dry so it wouldn't keep dripping into his face. It was hard to have a conversation half blind, with water running down into your eye. He knew exactly what she was here about, but far be it from him to interrupt the so called "goddess of discord". 

"Loki's missing." 

"Is he?" 

"He was last in your vicinity." 

"What a co-inky dink." 

Her blind, star filled eyes narrowed, and her brown lips curved down in a savage frown. "Bob." Amazing how much disdain she could pack into one word. 

"He came to find out what happened to his son." 

"Fenrir?" 

"Does he have another? I mean, still living." 

"He's alive too, is he?" 

"Abso-tively. If I killed a god, you guys would know, wouldn't ya?" 

She glanced at the frozen tableau of humanity around her, and sighed as dramatically as she could. "You are a troublemaker, Bob." 

"I didn't start any of this. If I killed either of them - which I didn't - it would have been self-defense." 

"Except Loki was never a match for you. You should have been the lord of tricksters, Bob; you were always far more clever than he was." 

"I'll take that as a compliment. But you know my bullshit's always been less malicious than his." 

"You have your moments." 

He gave her a lopsided grin. "Don't we all?" 

Her expression remained stony and unforgiving. "Do I assume you displaced them?" 

"Fenrir is in a pocket universe where he cannot escape, thanks to Balder's Gate. And Loki's in a place where his power over entropy might actually do some good.They weren't harmed. Well, okay, I smacked Fenrir's ass a bit, but he deserved worse." 

"From a certain standpoint, killing them would have been easier." 

"Perhaps. Surely you're not here to make that request of me, are you?" 

She didn't answer for the longest time, and he suddenly realized that yes, that was exactly why she was here.He stared at her,feeling sea water run down his legs from his sodden shorts and make a mucky pool on the sand beneath his bare feet. "You can't be serious." 

"Fenrir is a menace." 

"Then you kill him." 

"We don't have access to Balder's Gate." 

"I can't access it either." 

"Yes, you can. It is within your abilities to - " 

"And you say it's not within the abilities of all you elites?" He interrupted angrily. "Come on, Eris! Don't give me that shit!" 

But her face was an impassive obsidian mask,lit from within by the light of a thousand different stars. "We don't do things that way." 

"No, of course not. That would be too honest, wouldn't it?" 

She arched a single dark eyebrow at him, as close to an emotion as she had really come so far. "You have stones, Bob. You've always had stones." 

"You say it like it's a bad thing." 

"I thought the whole point of exile was becoming humble." 

"I ain't got nothin' to be humble about." 

"This was supposed to drive you crazy. Perhaps it has, although not in the way intended. You were never supposed to get your powers back." 

"Strange things happen." 

"Especially around you." 

He could only shrug - it was a fair cop. Tired of the feeling of wet sand squishing between his toes, he sat down, instantly assuming a lotus position out of habit. Eris made no move to sit, but he didn't expect her to; she probably enjoyed being looked up at. "You know, there are other hit men. Shiva's probably chompin' at the bit to finish off Fenrir, not to mention Thoth. Get them on it." 

"Bastet has offered." 

"Has she? Aw, bless." She was a hell of a dame, part feline or not. "So there's no need of me, is there?" An ironic bit of song lyric filled the eerie silence that followed - "- because I'm gonna buy this place and see it burn, do back the things it did to you in return - " and Bob realized that, as usual, one of the elites was being less than up front. "Unless this is a test," he said, scowling up at her. 

Her expression had slid back to stone. "Why would we test you?" 

"Indeed. Cut the bullshit - what's the deal? Come on, Er, I know you have to keep up appearances, but it's just us in a frozen bubble of time. The other elites aren't eavesdropping, as far as I can tell. So spill." 

She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to sigh again, but that was difficult because she never really got a hang of the breathing thing. "We have a proposition." 

"We? Specify. Not those flamin' Powers, I hope." 

"No - they still have no wish to deal with you. This offer is from the elites - we believe you have served your time." 

That made him raise an eyebrow at her, and a snatch of an old Sisters Of Mercy song suddenly floated through his mind:"In the land of the blind, be king." "Are you saying you want me back in the higher dimensions? In spite of the Powers objection?" 

"Standing against Fenrir by yourself was a brave thing." 

"I had help." 

"Camaxtli only in spirit does not count." 

"I had more help than that." 

She managed a derisive snort okay. "Humans wouldn't be here still if it wasn't for your intervention. They do not count either. Fenrir could have destroyed you." 

"Could have, but he didn't. I never go into a fight expecting to lose." 

"This is not an offer made lightly, or to be taken lightly. It may never be offered again." 

"I get that. But what the hell makes you think I want to join you power drunk loons?" 

She quirked one eyebrow up at him. "Stones, Bob; many stones. Consider it well - we will return." And with that, she winked out of existence and time resumed, a roaring wave of sound and sense that was almost disorienting. The albatross and gulls wheeled and screeched again as the ocean crashed against the shore, and the murmurs of people and the droning hum of distant cars filled in all the decibels on the scale in between. 

The sunbathing woman glanced at him speculatively, as he was sitting only a few feet from her, and by her perception of time, he had just appeared out of nowhere, as if dropping out of a rip in time. ( Which was more or less true.)"Maam," he said politely, unfolding his legs and standing up. Teleporter Ben Chen was still standing near by, and instantly started answering his previous question, the one he asked before Eris stopped time cold. "There is a satellite base near Broken Hill." 

"Way out there, huh? Good place for it." Bob scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying to focus on the task at hand. He loved how circumstances always threw spanners in the works. 

He fixed his gaze on the unseeing eyes of Chen, and said, "Okay, mate. I spent all day surfing, and I was never aware of you. I left in the company of a purple skinned girl with green dreadlocks." It would be funny if they actually looked for her - like a saltwater hating Skrjet demon would actually be anywhere near the coast of Australia - and he wondered if they'd ever grok she wasn't a mutant. "Now go on home - we never spoke." 

"Yes," he agreed, and seemed to blink of existence. Bob made sure no one else noticed. 

As he grabbed his abandoned surfboard, he couldn't help but chuckle to himself. The elites wanted him? How bad were things for them? Unless it was a trap. 

Or they were afraid of something. What could the elites be afraid of? 

He left the beach pondering that troubling question. 

5 

    It took a while, but he was able to remember his name was Logan, and he figured, from the motion, he was in a car. 

Beyond that, he was at a loss. 

He felt like he was floating inside his own skin, and wondered if he was drunk. Drugged? It was a pleasantly light sensation, although his arm - burning, aching - seemed to keep him tethered to his body, and he didn't appreciate it. He was wondering if there was some way to remove it so he could float away. 

There was a woman in the car, and she kept talking to him, her voice a low murmur that only periodically made sense. But then again, his own thoughts only made periodic sense. Well, as far as he could tell. 

His mind felt like it was buzzing like a bee in the confines of his skull. It was so hard to think, to concentrate on one thing and follow it through. His body wanted to sleep, but his mind was fighting it all the way, and he didn't know which of them was right. 

There was suddenly a new noise about the high pitched drone of the car's laboring engine  - a sound of shattering glass ( was that what just hit him? ) and the woman letting out a startled yelp as he smelled metal and gunpowder in the stuffy car, and it jolted suddenly, as if it hit a big pothole, and it sent a sharp new pain knifing through his aching arm. Fuck, that hurt! But at the same time, it brought him back to himself a little more; it was a bit easier to concentrate. 

"They have guns? Since when do vampires have guns?!" The woman exclaimed. "Isn't that cheating?!" 

"All's fair in love and war," he muttered, opening his eyes. His vision was blurry, and he didn't think that was normal. 

She slewed the wheel hard to right, and from the severe jolting of the car and the slapping of branches against the frame, he guessed she'd just taken them off road. But from the odd flapping noise and the extra violent bouncing on the rear left side, a tire had already been shot out. That wasn't good. 

"But what the fuck is the war about?!" She snapped, fighting to keep control of the steering column. "And I dumped Steve. Not soon enough, it seems." 

"Who's Steve?" The car was shaking so badly the pain in his arm was nearly constant now. He decided to try and sit up, but in stages; his head still felt lighter than air. 

"My dead ex-boyfriend, who is no longer dead. Is he a vampire? Do you think he's a vampire?" 

"I dunno. Does he got fangs?" 

"Not last time I saw him, but who knows?" She then exclaimed, "Shit!" 

"What now?" 

"Dead end." 

He shoved himself up into a sitting position, and glanced out the broken window. Behind them was the distant glow of headlights through trees, and in front of them, beyond a dirt track that dead ended in a thick stand of trees, was the dark shape of a building deep inside the woods. "See that?" He said, gesturing towards the shape. 

She leaned forward, and seemed to squint hard as she braked the car a foot or so before a thick tree trunk. He was pretty sure they'd crash into the tree, but the soft ground helped bring them up an inch or two short, although he was thrown forward and hit the back of her seat with his bad arm. The pain that stabbed through him was so explosively bad a small, strangled cry escaped him before he could completely swallow it back. 

"Oh shit." She looked back at him, face twisted in an expression of sympathetic pain. "Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, 'm fine," he mumbled, grabbing his right arm. It was sticky with blood, and while the gash was still deep, he could no longer see bone. That was good, right? "We need to go," he added, letting his right arm hang limp as he opened the door and got out. 

The wind came up and nearly blew the door off its hinges. The wind was howling like a vengeful demon, and he suddenly wondered if this part of the States had tornados. If he was in the States ... fuck, why couldn't he remember? 

His mind was like the aftermath of a hurricane: things were scattered everywhere, random, any linearity completely gone. What had happened to him? The only thing that came to mind was being attacked by some old guy in a purple cape. 

Okay, now he knew he was high. 

He was so dizzy when he got to his feet he almost fell right over, but he held on to the car door until the worst of it passed. The woman got out - she had said her name, hadn't she? Mad ... Mad something - and she looked past him, her hazel eyes bright with fear. ( He could smell it - did people smell fear? ) "What the fuck do they want?" She shouted over the roar of the wind. Even though she was barely a foot away, it was hard to hear her. "They don't actually drink blood, do they?" 

"Everybody in the car? I don't know. But vamps? Yeah." He vaguely recalled being bit once, but he'd swear he'd let that happen on purpose. Why? 

He shouldn't have said that. She smelled as much of shock as fear ( he could smell that too?! ), and he got the sense a thousand yard stare was about to come on. "What part of now don't you understand?" He groused, grabbing her arm and pulling her deeper into the trees, away from the car and towards the mysterious structure. 

It was hard to move; his legs were like rubber, and all he wanted to do was collapse, but he knew he couldn't, not until he got them someplace relatively safe. When he thought his legs would buckle, he moved his right arm. The searing pain gave him the concentration and adrenaline he needed to keep going. 

The branches slapped viciously at their faces, as if trying to decapitate them, but they managed to keep their heads intact until they stumbled into the clearing, nearly tripping on the gnarled root of a tree that rose up out of the dirt like a booby trap. 

In the clearing was a residence larger than your average cabin, but smaller than your average home. Even before the rain started sheeting down from the sky, as warm as blood and as hard as stone, he could smell the dry rot in the wood of the place -  if it wasn't abandoned, it should have been. As the wind gusted, its beams creaked with a noise not unlike screeching cats. 

"Oh holy fuck," the woman said. ( He decided he was calling her Maddie until he remembered her name. ) "Is that an actual haunted house?" 

"No - most likely a crazed loner's shack." 

"And that's better?" She complained, as he pulled her towards the house of Usher. Well, it did cut a rather sinister silhouette; perhaps it would have been less ominous if there had been any sort of light at all. 

There was no guarantee it wouldn't fall apart - a few shingles flew off the roof as they approached the door - but he knew inside was better than out right now, even in a dilapidated shack like this. "It's abandoned," he said, as the animal presence smelled a lot sharper and more recent than any human scents. 

She looked around, and if she wanted to ask how he knew that, she decided not to. But there was an obvious rusty lock box on the door. "Think there's some way we can break in?" 

He stood back, and kicked the door with the flat of his foot as hard as he could muster. The wood cracked with a sound like a rifle shot, making Maddie jump, and he was so suddenly dizzy that he grabbed his own right arm to keep on his feet. The pain was so bright and savage it turned his vision red, and he almost bit his tongue to keep from screaming, but it gave him the extra adrenaline he need to not only stay upright, but also completely kick in the door. The wood gave way around the knob and lock box, and pieces of it blew inside the dark and musty smelling hovel as he grabbed Maddie by the arm and shoved her in ahead of them. He knew they were close; he could feel their eyes as well as smell them on the raging winds. 

But even as he got inside, she gave him an evil frown, and said, "The door's open! They can just charge in - " 

"Vamps can't come in unless they're invited." He didn't even realize he knew that until it fell out of his mouth. Really? How the hell did he know that? 

The surprise on her face mimicked what he felt inside. "What are you, Van Helsing?" She snapped. 

It was then the vampires outside opened fire. 

She screamed in fear as he tackled her and drove her to the floor, bullets punching holes in the rotting wooden walls, and he jostled his right arm enough that he couldn't quite swallow back the snarl of pain as bullets ripped the air just over their heads. She had struggled, trying to get out from under him, but she stopped as soon as she heard him growl. Did she think that was for her? 

And why was he trying to protect her anyways? Did he know this woman? How could he - he didn't even know her name! But he wasn't too sure about his either, so maybe that was a bad example. 

He was sure about one thing: bullets couldn't kill him. He seemed to have a bedrock belief in that, although he wasn't sure why. Certainly his arm still hurt like motherfucking hell - he obviously could be hurt, and badly. But not killed? 

Although it felt incredibly good to be off his feet, he knew he had to get them both away from the door - they couldn't enter, but they could sure as shit shoot inside from an open vantage point - so as soon as there was a pause to reload and move closer to the house, he got up and hauled Maddie to her feet. She stank of fear, and he knew it wasn't only the bullets - he had scared her in some way, but he wasn't sure how, and right now he didn't care. "Come on," he said, pulling her into another room, away from the front door. 

It had been someone's bedroom at some point - there was still a mattress in the far corner, now mildewing, with the base scents of urine, semen, and voles all over it - but it had most recently been a home for rodents, judging by the scent and the chewed wood. Mattress fluff stuck out of gnawed holes in the mattress, and the springs that jutted out were so rusty he was sure they'd shatter like glass if anything touched it. "Stay down," he told her, shutting the door and crouching down in the corner beside it, in case he was wrong about them all being vampires. 

Maddie retreated to a far corner, eyeing him warily. "What are you?" 

"I told you, a mutant." Was he sure about that? Why was he sure about that? 

"No, I mean ... isn't it convenient you know about this shit? All this demon and vampire crap? And that I just happened to run into you." She paused as she sank into her own low crouch against the far wall. Fear was making her angry and paranoid, but he supposed he couldn't blame her. Well, no, he could if it made her do something stupid. "Okay, literally, but that's not what I mean." 

"Are you asking if I with them?" 

"Yes. Or one of them." 

That made him scoff; he was still in too much pain to laugh. "You think I'm a fuckin' demon?" 

"You just growled like a fucking wolf! That wasn't a Human noise!" 

"I'm a mutant!" 

"So fucking what?! A mutant is still a Human being!" 

"Not to most people!" He was surprised by the amount of anger and pain in that statement. It felt like a sore subject, but really, he had no idea why. Did people hate mutants? Why? 

She looked guilty, and glanced away just as the shooting started again."Hit the floor!" He shouted, and did so, as they seemed to have realized where they were. He was pretty sure vamps could hear and smell better than the average person, but not as good as him. He had them there, for all the good it would do them. 

She hit the floor too, covering her head with her arms, and he shouted, "What do they want?" 

"Why the fuck are you askin' me?" She snapped. 

"Because that guy back at the car seemed to think you had something. What did he think you had?" 

"An eye or something, I don't know!" 

"An eye?" Okay, that made no sense at all. 

No, maybe it did. Mystical shit always had weird ass names, didn't it? How did he know that? And why did he have a desire to call a guy named Bob? "Did you take anything from this Steve?" He asked, as there was a pause in the fusillade. 

"Fuck you!" She replied angrily. "I didn't take anything from that prick!" 

"But he's made them think you have. Why?" 

"Because he's a bitter prick? How the fuck should I know?!" 

Outside, he could hear the vampires talking as they reloaded and shifted positions. "Who's the guy?" A male one asked. 

"I don' know," a guy with a flat Midwestern accent replied. He thought of him as the leader, whether that was warranted or not. "But his blood stinks of Rhedoc - I don' think we gotta worry about him much longer." 

Rhedoc? What the hell was that? And what did that mean? 

"What is it?" She asked, staring across the dusty wooden floor at him. She must have noticed he was listening to what was going on outside. 

"Is Steve from the Midwest?" 

She stared at him like he was absolutely nuts, but admitted, "He's from Kansas." 

Close enough. "He's out there." 

That made her look up, towards the outside wall, as if she could see through it. "That fucking bastard," she snarled, as the shooting started anew. But they could only tell from the holes that occasionally popped up in the wall - the wall was screaming so loudly, and the rotting house groaning so violently under the strain, that the gunshots were swallowed in the general din. You knew it was a bad storm when automatic gunfire couldn't be heard. 

She started to crawl on her elbows towards the door, but as soon as she got close he grabbed her arm. "What do you think you're doing?" He hissed. 

"I'm gonna kick that fuckin' asshole in the balls." 

"He's a vampire with a gun who wants to kill you. How far do you think you'll get before you're ripped to pieces?" 

She glared at him, lips thinning to a hard line, but all she did was pull her arm away and try and hug the floor as bullets zinged over their head. 

The gunfire paused, and he could hear rain pattering on the floor from leaks in the roof. He also heard the dry clicks of empty guns, and told her, "They're out of ammo." 

Maddie sighed heavily. "Thank god. Now I can go kick him in the nads." 

"He's still a vampire." 

She glanced around. "There's a lot of wood here." 

"This is your last chance, Maddie," Steve shouted from outside. He was straining hard to be heard over the wind. "Give me the Dragon's Eye and I'll let you walk away!" 

"Fuck you, jack off!" She screamed back angrily. "Even if I had the fucking thing, I wouldn't give it to you in a billion years, you stupid son-of-a-bitch!" 

Logan sighed, and rolled his eyes. If vampires alone weren't bad enough, he had to be smack in the middle of a domestic dispute. And his right arm continued to throb and pound like an open wound, which it partially was. 

Dragon's Eye - what the hell could that be? Obviously it was not in her car - if it was, they'd have found it by now. They still might kill her - he was under the impression vampires were vicious - but Steve wouldn't be out there demanding it if they had it in their cold little hands. So it was something small, something she could carry on her person ... a piece of jewelry maybe? But why would that be so important to a group of vampires? 

"What's your problem," Maddie said derisively, addressing his sigh. "You said they couldn't get inside, right?" 

He heard a distant crack, somewhere near the back of the house. That was followed by the sharp scent of gasoline. "No, but they can burn us outta here," he told her, as he could smell/hear the flames ripping through the rotted wood, being fanned by the hard gusting wind. 

Oh fuck. When the shit hit the fan, it hit it by the shovelful, didn't it? 


	3. Part 3

6 

    The music was so loud she could hear the bass pounding in her chest like a phantom heartbeat, and  sometimes the crush of sounds and bodies left her breathless. 

Goddamn, this was too much fun. She really needed to do this more often. 

But Rogue was sweating like a pig, and she hated it. Well, she was wearing too many clothes, but she had to - people were crowded in here like clowns in a car at the circus, and they were forever bumping into her. She hoped they realized how lucky they were that she was mostly covered up. 

Bobby was trying to do his chivalrous thing to protect her ( or maybe just the others ), and it was so damn cute she just wanted to kiss him. Except that might kill him, so she didn't. 

These clothes were supposed to "breathe", according to the salesgirl at the mall. Fucking liar. The red satin t-shirt clung to her like a damp handkerchief, and her satin elbow length gloves were hardly any better. Her jeans felt unnecessarily tight ( maybe she was just retaining water or something - she had not gained weight ... not really ... ), and the lightweight duster she wore felt like it was made of fleece, not linen. Maybe if this place had ventilation or an air conditioner, it wouldn't be too bad, but someone had turned a loading warehouse into a party spot, and hadn't bothered to do anything but set up a killer stereo system and some multicolored gel lights. At first that had been cool; at first that had been enough. 

But there were like, what - a hundred people crammed in here? Most of them dancing, raising the amount of humidity and body heat trapped in this cement and tin ad-hoc club. This drink wasn't helping. The guy handing them out said they were for "cooling down", but one drink of the super sweet but caustic stuff and she was instantly sweating twice as much as before. But it tasted a lot better after the first sip; she couldn't believe she didn't like it for a moment. Maybe she was too hot, but it didn't seem to be bothering her quite as much now. 

Bobby finally managed to edge and push his way through the crowd, towards the "bar", which appeared to be nothing more than overturned, piano sized crates stacked in the far corner of the warehouse. "Find the bathroom?" She asked. 

He grimaced, shrugging a single shoulder. "Sorta." He looked down warily at the glass of neon blue liquid she pushed towards him across the crate. "What is that?" 

"The guy called it a "Breeze"," she said, enjoying another drink of hers. She was really starting to like the burn. 

Bobby picked up the cup and sniffed the contents cautiously before having a sip. The second he did, his face contorted in terrifying disgust, and looked away as he managed to choke it down, but he doubled over like he was about to barf. "Oh god," he gasped, before he found the strength to straighten up. He slammed the cup down on the bar like it was suddenly too hot to handle. 

"The first drink's a killer, but then it gets good." 

"Marie, this shit is like a hundred proof," he exclaimed, his voice sounding inexplicably raspy. His blue eyes widened in horror as he saw the half empty cup in her hand. "How much have you had?" 

"Just this much," she said, measuring a small space in the air with her fingers. It struck her as funny, so she laughed as she brought the cup up to her lips. 

Bobby suddenly grabbed it and tried to muscle it away from her, but she wasn't letting it go. "Hey, drink your own!" 

"This stuff is toxic-you've had enough." 

"What, are you Scott now?" She managed to rip it out of his grasp, but the second she did the entire glass turned to ice, inside and out, the acrylic shattering but being held together by the frozen drink inside the cup. "Hey!" She exclaimed angrily, slapping him on the shoulder with her free hand, as she tried to shake the now undrinkable snowball from her other hand. It was so cold it was sticking to the fabric of her glove. "What the hell did you do that for?" 

"You've had enough." 

"Not nearly." The drink finally dropped from her glove, and hit the cement floor like a stone. "I didn't think alcohol could freeze anyhow." 

"Everything freezes when it drops to sub-zero," he said, turning aside to cough. He didn't barf, although she thought he might. 

She was still really annoyed him, but hey, he was overprotective sometimes-it was kind of cute, in spots. She put her hand on his back  before he turned back, and she felt him tense slightly. What, did he think she took her glove off? Did he think she'd zap him? She wasn't that mad at him. As he turned back, relaxing a bit, he groaned, "Scott is gonna kill us." 

"Why? He gave us the okay to go out on my birthday. I know Storm had to talk him into it, so he can get pissed at her." 

"You're drunk, and not from running into someone either. He's gonna kill us. We'll be grounded until we're twenty three." 

"I am not! And I dare him to! Who does he think he is anyways?" 

"The guy who can make our life hell. Oh man, look how late it is." He held up his wrist so she could see his watch, just in case she missed it. "We were supposed to go out to a movie and be back by eleven." 

"We did go to a movie. Even though the couple in front of us were more interestin' than that piece of crap of on screen." 

He shrugged. "It had a couple of good explosions." 

"Too little too late. And what the hell kinda birthday is dinner and a movie anyways? Scott musta had a really sad childhood." 

"Umm, Marie - " 

"I mean, just 'cause his life sucked doesn't mean the rest of us have to pay for it - " 

"Come on, let's get out of here," he insisted, touching her arm. 

She looked up at him and grinned, suddenly getting a wicked idea. "Wanna make my birthday real special?" 

He raised his eyebrows, and looked at her like she was scaring the shit out of him. It was so cute it made her giggle. "Marie, we should really get back - " 

She attempted a seductive look, and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, getting so close to him he jerked his head back to avoid any accidental contact. "Haven't you ever wanted to be with me?" 

He chuckled humorlessly. "I'm a teenage boy. What do you think?" 

She grinned. He was so cute when he was flustered. "Well, if you wore a condom, it wouldn't be like you were actually touching me ... " 

"Oh god," he exclaimed, as if she had just suggested they murder someone, and lurched backwards, out of her grip. "Marie, you're drunk, and I really think we need to go." 

"Oh, come on-" 

"Please, I'm at the limits of my willpower as it is," he said, almost pleading, giving her puppy dog eyes. "Let's just get home." 

She frowned, wondering why he had to be so gutless at times. Logan wouldn't be ... not that she could talk him into sleeping with her... could she? It wasn't like he was ever around very long. Jean seemed to think he was old - like really old; Professor old - but she probably only said that so she could keep him for herself. "Fuck home! They can wait." 

"Can we?" Scott said, suddenly appearing behind Bobby. 

Bobby jumped about a foot and spun around so fast she was surprised he didn't do a complete three sixty. Scott scowled at them both, turning various color due to the strobing gel lights. "I thought you agreed to be home over an hour ago. I also thought you agreed no clubs." 

"Well, this isn't a club exactly," Bobby pointed out, with a tiny, nervous laugh. "It's just an impromptu party." 

"In other words, an illegal club." 

"Well ... " 

"Look, we just wanted to have a good time," Rogue said, wondering what his problem was. "What's a birthday without a party?" 

The look on his face got stranger, and he sniffed like Logan trying to find a clue. "Do I smell alcohol?" 

"Uh, yeah, some guys walked past with some-I froze one," Bobby said, gesturing to the broken cup on the floor. It was so frozen solid it hadn't even started to melt yet. "Maybe we should get goin' huh?" 

If a jaw could be said to clench skeptically, Scott's did. "You've been drinking." It wasn't a question. 

"No," Bobby instantly exclaimed. 

"He hasn't, nah," she said. "But why can't I have a drink? It's my birthday." 

Scott sighed heavily, and shook his head. "Bobby, you said - " 

"He's not my warden!" She snapped, elbowing Bobby aside and getting right in Scott's face. "I'm not a child-stop treatin' me like one!" 

Scott crossed his arms over his chest, and in spite of his visor, she knew he was glowering at her. "Yeah, you're drunk," he said disdainfully, turning away. "It's time to go." 

"It's my - " 

Bobby grabbed her arm, and hissed in her ear, "Please don't get in a fight with him. Let's just go home, okay?" 

She yanked her arm away, and was about to cuss him out for being a wimp, when the music and the lights suddenly died. The crowd rumbled unhappily, and the large door slid open, revealing about a half a dozen dark figures with flashlights. "Everyone remain calm," a monotone man's voice announced loudly. "You will not be arrested if you disperse in a calm and orderly manner." 

"Oh great," Bobby sighed. "Cops. We're so busted." 

"They aren't real cops," Scott said quietly, his voice tight with tension. 

"What?" She asked, peering over his shoulder. They were certainly moving-and armed-like cops. 

"Something's going on," Scott said, apparently not minding being Mister Obvious. "Stay behind me." 

That wasn't a problem; she wasn't going to go up and shake their hands. 

As they fanned out, playing flashlight beams across the faces of the stunned and frightened crowd, Rogue whispered in Scott's ear, "Well shoot them already." 

"They haven't done anything yet," he whispered back. After a moment, he added, "And I don't have a clear shot." 

Suddenly, a girl somewhere in the back exclaimed, with great vehemence, "I'm not going back there, and you can't make me." 

As all the flashlights swung around, frantically searching for the source of the voice, the ground started to shake violently, and the tin walls of the warehouse began to bell inward and make a loud noise like stage lightning as they began to quiver and tremble. It was like there was some big ass giant tribe surrounding them and trying to kick in the walls. Her first, instantaneous thought shot adrenaline spiked fear through her heart: Magneto. 

But then, in the swooping of flashlight beams as the holders struggled to keep their footing - as well as advance into the now screaming crowd - she could see the floor was now spiderwebbing with cracks. Since when did cement have metal in it? 

No, this had to be a genuine earthquake: the ground felt like gelatin beneath their feet, more liquid than solid. She grabbed onto Bobby to keep her balance, and he held her tightly, as if trying to use her to keep his own balance. Scott reached out to grab the bar, but seemed to be riding it out better than most - all that Danger Room shit, probably. 

People were falling like bowling pins, and Rogue searched the far side of the crowd, where she was pretty sure she heard the voice.Was there someone standing perfectly still and calm over there? She was pretty sure they was - a mutant? A mutant who could cause earthquakes? So who were these dickheads hunting her and why? 

Before she could point her out to Scott, he looked up so suddenly that she did as well. 

Just in time to see the roof falling down on their heads. 

7 

    She must have finally caught on to the smell of acrid pine smoke. 

"Oh my god," Maddie exclaimed, sitting up and looking around as if it would help. "Are they lighting a fire out there?" 

Logan refused to comment. Lighting a fire? Judging from the noise, the whole back of the house had just gone up. No matter that it was raining hard enough it sounded like it was hailing pebbles, the fire had taken on a life of its own, something that even the rain couldn't quite fight. He suddenly wondered if they were only using gasoline as an ignition fuel. "If I got it right there's only seven of them out there," he finally said, sitting up. He had a head rush so instantaneous and violent he fell back against the wall. He had to wait for the blood to come back to his brain before he could focus and speak again. 

"Oh my god," Maddie gasped, looking between him and the floor. In the dimness it was hard to make out, but he could see a black patch on the floor, like spilled oil. But of course it wasn't spilled oil; it was blood. Most likely from his throbbing arm. "You-you should-" she began hesitantly, constantly stopping herself as if unsure what to say. He couldn't blame her."You need a doctor." 

"I don't, I'll be fine," he said, but he knew now that that was a lie. He should be fine, but he wasn't; he would swear he'd never bled for this long before. Something was going on, something both far from typical and far from good. But it would have to wait until the danger of armed bloodsuckers and fire were gone. "What I need to know is, are you wearing jewelry or something?" 

"Jewelry?" Even in the dark, he could see the disbelieving look on her face. "Jewelry? We're on fire and you're trying to rob me?" 

"Fuck you! I just wanna know what the Dragon's Eye might be! Or maybe what we can con them with." 

"Con them with?" She repeated, eying him dubiously. "Will they fall for that?" 

""Probably not, but if we can distract some of them even for a moment it'd be good." Truth be told, he just wanted to see if she had the damn thing - the vamps had to know what they were looking for; it was doubtful they could be bluffed. 

He wished his arm would stop hurting. It was harder to move now, as if the muscles were locking up, and his brain still felt as if it was wrapped in a cushioning layer of helium. If it wasn't for the arm, it wouldn't have been so bad a sensation. 

Maddie took something out from underneath her yellow "Coffee-Allows You To Do Stupid Things Twice As Fast" t-shirt, and held it out towards him. "Well, I got this, but do you think they'll buy it?" 

It was a small pendant on a slender silver chain around her neck. It was a circle about the size of a dime, and looked like a black pearl. "What is it?" Black pearl ... pearls were generally considered Asian in origin ... so were dragons. Dragon's Eye. Holy shit, could could it be that simple? 

"It's just a necklace my grandmother gave me. She used to say she was a pearl diver and this one was the last she ever harvested, but I think it's actually plastic - " She ended her sentence with a cough; the smoke was starting to get pretty thick in here, and you could see the glow of the fire bleeding under the door. 

He elbowed the wall behind him with his left arm, until the wood splintered and cracked. The pain was negligible, but briefly distracted him from the burning agony of his right arm. "Keep it hidden under your shirt; they might think it's the real thing." 

"What would vampires want with a black pearl?" She asked, but she did as she said, putting it back beneath her shirt. 

"What do vamps want with anything? Why don't they just hit  blood banks and leave us walkin' around Humans be?" He broke off a good sized piece of jagged wood paneling,  and held it out so she could see it. "Now I want you to hang back inside here as long as you safely can, out of grabbing distance. Hopefully by the time you get out I'd have killed all the bastards, but if not you need to jab any stiff that reaches for you right through the heart with this. And jam it hard-you gotta bust the ribs." 

"Eww." She reached for the impromptu stake, paused, and asked, "Where's the heart, exactly?" 

He positioned the jagged point of the impromptu stake over his own heart, and said, "Right here.Even if you catch just the edge of it, that seems to be enough. Got it?" 

"Yeah, I think so." As she reluctantly took the stake, she asked, "Why wood, exactly?" 

He snorted humorously. "Fuck if I know, darlin'. All I know is it makes 'em do that exploding thing." 

"Like that one guy, Rod?" He nodded, even though he couldn't remember the guy identifying himself by name. Or was that her nickname for him? Why on Earth would she call him "Rod"? After a moment, she added, "Why do they do that exploding thing?" 

"I ain't the person to ask." He attempted to stand up, using the intact part of the wall for support, and somehow he made it, but he caused another head rush that narrowed his vision and almost made him fall flat on his face. How in the hell was he going to fight like this? 

Goddamn it, he was gonna have to find a way. He was not going to sit here and roast to death, nor was he going to let seven bloodsuckers get the best of him. It was just not going to happen. 

He curled his left hand into a fist, and punched himself in his right arm. 

Even though he thought he had braced for it, the explosion of pain that burst through his entire body made him scream, and Maddie let out a strangled cry of fear as she scuttled away from him, nearly hitting the far wall in her desperate need to get away from him. "What the fuck did you do that for?!" She exclaimed, equal parts amazed, angry, and scared. "Are you insane?!" 

"I'd have to be to fight seven vampires," he snarled, keeping his eyes tightly closed so the tears wouldn't escape. He supposed he could always blame it on smoke. 

The pain and adrenaline racing through his system made his claws pop, almost of their own volition, the claws ripping through the thin skin of his knuckles adding to the symphony of pain sharpening his clouded mind, and he heard her gasp. "You got those things in both hands," she said, awed. 

"Symmetry," he said, and almost laughed, but he didn't know why. He knew this focus and this drive to keep moving wouldn't last long, so he made himself walk across the floor, towards the far wall. 

"What are you doing?" She asked, still sounding frightened of him. He couldn't blame her really-he was prepared to claw himself in the wound if it kept him going. He was very clearly a madman. 

"Remember what I said," was his only reply, as he paused, closed his eyes, and tried to mentally gather his forces. Pain almost wasn't enough anymore; soon, he was going to fall on his face, and he'd be unable to get back up again. He had to finish this fight before that time came, or he'd end up in some vamp's digestive system. 

Holding his claws out in front of him, he launched himself at the outside wall. Well, the vamps would be expecting them to come out the front door. 

The rotting wood was no match for a three hundred pound man full of at least one hundred pounds of metal, and as he exploded through it, he managed to launch himself on a vamp who must have been one of the perimeter guards. Even though he let out a startled yelp before they even hit the ground, he didn't have time to do anything else, as Logan drove his claw straight into his throat and severed his head from his neck. 

He'd barely exploded into dust when he heard some of his vampire buddies making "What the fuck?" kinds of exclamations, and then a dark blur was on him as he rolled to his feet, personally startled that his reaction time was so slow. He knew he was usually much better than this; fucking injury. 

The new vamp - a woman this time,Hispanic and apparently embracing the dominatrix look - kicked him in the face before he could fully get to his feet, and as he stumbled back in a bid to keep his balance, she spun into a roundhouse kick that caught him on the side of the head, right above his ears. If that hadn't rang his bells so much, he would have admitted it was an impressively good shot. "I think he's one of those fucking mutants!" She shouted back to the boss, as two other vamps came at him from behind. 

"Take him out goddamn it! The Rhedoc's already poisoned his blood anyways!" Steve shouted back. "I want the girl! Maddie! Maddie, where the fuck are you?!" 

"Fuck you, Lestat!" Maddie shouted back, but it sounded like she was still in the house. As far as he could tell. 

Logan kicked the Hispanic vamp in the stomach, throwing her back as the two guys grabbed him by the arms from behind. He dropped instantly to his knees, making both vamps - who were not expecting that - lose their balance, and since Vampira had just recovered and spun into another kick, she accidentally nailed the guy who had his left arm square in the face. Although the pain was horrendous, he threw the vamp who had his right arm to the ground, and drove his left claw straight into his neck and ripped across the flesh. He had just exploded into dust when Vampira nailed him with another kick to the head that sent him sprawling. He realized suddenly that he was under the impression that female vampires were far more deadly than the male ones - why he didn't know, unless he'd never encountered a truly impressive male vampire - and he instantly regretted letting that one go at the bar. 

What bar? When? 

The dominatrix look wasn't just for show. Logan was aware that the woman had raised her boot high, and he was looking up at a stiletto heel that really was a stiletto when it started plunging straight down towards his face. 

Luckily, some reflexes were inborn, no matter how bad off he was. 

His left claw slashed up, and he met very little resistance as he swatted her foot aside like an annoying fly. 

Vampira fell back hard on her ass, and looked stunned at the stump where her right foot had been a moment before. "My foot!" She cried in horror and indigence. "The pendejo cut off my fucking foot!" 

"Stick somethin' in my face, and you pull back a bloody stump," he said. climbing to his feet. He knew it shouldn't be taking him this long. "Consider it a lesson." 

"Wanna burn to death, Maddie?!" Steve was shouting at the house. "I'll get the Dragon's Eye either way, you stupid bitch!" 

"Eat me!" She shouted in reply. 

"I was planning to!" He shot back. 

"Consider this a lesson," a vampire with a Canadian accent ( he knew he was still near the border ) snapped, as he swung a gun butt straight into his head. It shattered on the back of his skull like it was made from glass, and the vamp shouted out the now ubiquitous,"What the fuck?" but Logan could hardly capitalize on the moment, as the blow had honestly stunned him, flooding his vision with black motes and dropping him to knees even though he had just regained his feet. 

Still, he jabbed his left claw back, and stabbed the guy straight through the leg. He let out a cry of pain, and as Logan tore the claw out, he heard the guy fall on his ass behind him. Hard to keep your balance with either a missing foot or a bifurcated kneecap. 

Two dead, two down and out of the fight; only three to go. 

He wondered if he'd remain conscious long enough to kill them first. 

8 

    Scott had just been about to grab Rogue and try and protect her with his body as best he could ( with an entire roof caving in, he'd hardly be any protection at all ), when a pillar suddenly materialized within two feet of them, ice so thick he could feel the waves of cold air coming off of it, like someone had left the freezer door open. 

Part of it cracked and shattered like spun sugar as the roof hit it, but Bobby was throwing out ice like his life depended on it ( it probably did ), and finally, as thick as any Ionic column on a stoa, the roof balanced and held on a thick pillar of semi-translucent ice, barely eight feet from the ground. 

"Bobby," Rogue said proudly, and Scott knew he had probably won her undying admiration for that. 

"I'm - I don't feel well," Bobby said in a strangely frail voice, and Scott turned in time to see the boy pitch forward to the floor. He caught him before he could hit the cracked cement face first. 

"Oh my god!" Rogue exclaimed, seeming amazingly sober now. Intense fear could smack all the drunk out of a person in no time flat. "Is he okay?" 

Scott hefted him up over his shoulder, equally glad the earthquake was down to little, distant trembles now, and that Bobby was a rather slight boy. "I think he pushed himself too hard, but he'll be okay once we get him back to the mansion." And although he still intended to ream him out for lying to them, breaking his agreement, and drinking, he also had to give him credit for saving everyone's life. He'd really done well, as far as that was concerned - he was proud of him. And he hated being mad at someone and impressed by them ( especially a student) all at once. It didn't really happen that often. 

He looked up front and, setting his visor on a wide beam, blasted the front wall. Just like he expected, the tin wall tore away from the welds where it met the rest of the structure and went flying out into the night like the world's most ungainly kite. This elicited more screams from the terrified crowd, but as soon as they realized what he had done - opened up a much wider, faster exit - the crowd seemed to scramble to their feet en masse and make a break for it. 

It looked like there were more of the pseudo-cops out if the parking lot, although that had been made into a sinkhole by the intense, well focused earthquake, and those that hadn't fallen in were sprawled all over the remainder of the lot like casually discarded toys. They tried to struggle to their feet to meet the sudden oncoming horde, but much of the crowd was in such a panic - cops and mutants in the same place at the same time - that if they tried to get in the way they were simply bowled over. As soon as he had a clear shot, Scott added to the confusion by blasting one of the fake police SUV's and sending it flying straight into another one, causing the violently fused metal hulks to roll into the street, making a couple of "officers" scramble out of its path. 

They were Organization, weren't they? He bet they were. And the hate that welled up in him was so overwhelming and so sudden he was barely aware he was even picking them off, blasting any fake cop that fell into his line of sight. It was like taking down targets in a shooting gallery. He felt not a single iota of remorse for knocking these men way into next week. After all, he had to protect Rogue and Bobby, didn't he? 

"The quake," Rogue said, apparently not caring that he was blasting all these men. "It wasn't natural. I think a girl in the club - " 

"I know; I heard her too," he said, leading her out into the shattered parking lot. Either the remaining cops had scattered, or the sinkhole had swallowed quite a few of them. They must have thought they were ready for her, and clearly fell short; they probably weren't expecting other mutants to be on the scene as well. 

"We should find her!" Rogue insisted. "Obviously she's in trouble! She must have gone out the back - " 

"The Professor can find her with Cerebro," he assured her, feeling a sort of cold satisfaction settle in him as he realized he probably had gotten all the fake cops that earthquake girl hadn't managed to nail. But it was just the satisfaction of a job well done - protecting Rogue and Bobby. Nothing more than that. He wasn't Logan - he didn't take any pleasure in hurting other people, no matter what they may have done to him. "We have to get Bobby back, have Jean check him out." He didn't bother to add he had to get her back to the mansion as well; she'd been so argumentative and pointlessly rebellious lately. He wasn't sure if he should blame hormones, Bob, Logan, or all of the above for her new and combative attitude. "And do you really want to stick around and meet their back up?" If they were Organization, there'd be twice as many twice as armed, and four times as vicious. 

Rogue harrumphed loudly, and Scott was willing to bet money she was now pouting, but she listened, maybe because it was Bobby who was hurt. He led her to his car, parked on a side street to avoid the clogged parking lot. It had been a fortuitous choice, since there was a crater where the lot was, and the street only had a few wide but negotiable cracks in it. If the car Bobby and Rogue "borrowed" for tonight still existed in one piece and above ground, they could come and get it tomorrow. 

He laid Bobby out in the back seat, realizing for the first time that not only was he as white as snow, but there were crystals of frost glistening in his eyelashes. Had he not only over-extended himself, but briefly lost control of his freezing abilities? He had a good pulse, was breathing okay, and didn't seem to be any colder than a normal person, so Scott assumed he had exhausted himself before his powers could really rebound on him in a serious way. Lucky for him, and probably everyone else in the "club". 

As he got behind the wheel, he suddenly wondered if Organization activity so close to the Xavier School was really just a coincidence. 

9 

    Jack had just tucked into his lunch when he noticed the security cameras on the outer perimeter were all dead. 

It wasn't a great loss - from north, south, east, and west, you saw the same thing: sand. Bloody sand as far as the eye could see. Broken Hill wasn't so much a town as it was a place where your car broke down, and you ended up stuck, trying to scratch up enough money to get the fuck out of here and go anyplace else. Except  Canberra, which - he knew from experience - was just as stultifying, only it had more plants and facades of civilizations. It was hard to fake things in Broken Hill - it was hard to do anything in Broken Hill. That's why they set up base around here. 

Sometimes when the wind kicked up, sand got in the cameras and broke them. No matter how they tried to seal them up, sand seemed to get in. Sand seemed to be fucking everywhere, like it was a curse. 

He put down his sandwich, wiped the mustard on his fingers off on his pantleg, and duly noted the time and   
date of the failure, and added, where it said location of the camera, "Everywhere". Well, it wasn't the first time such a thing had happened. And then there was that time that stupid gecko shorted out half the building. 

He went back for his sandwich when he noticed someone coming into the building through the internal security cameras. He just walked right in, like he belonged here, but it was clear he didn't. For one thing, he didn't have a security badge on. For another, who wore layers of clothing and leather in Broken flaming Hill anyways? The guy had to be roasting. And what the hell had happened to his hair? 

He activated an internal com, and said, "Jules, you may wanna come see this." 

It didn't take him long to respond. Within a minute he was there, his pinched, patrician face betraying more annoyance than usual. "What's the problem?" He asked, his tone suggesting that, whatever it was, it was his fault. 

"Look what just waltzed in," he said, pointing out the guy having the bad hair day. How could Jules have missed him? 

Jules stared for a moment, and Jack slowly realized his jaw had unhinged, and he looked a lot more pale than usual. His eyes were so wide he was surprised they hadn't fallen out onto the control panel and rolled around like marbles. "What? Who is this yobbo?" 

"It's Wolverine," Jules breathed, using the same tone of voice he would have for, "It's the tax man." 

The name was sort of familiar, but not enough for him to actually recall it. "And that's bad?" 

Jules looked at him now, ferrety little eyes narrowing with hate. "Of course that's bad, you moron! How were we not notified he was in Australia? Shit - order a level five evac now, self-destruct protocol." 

"What?" He thought level fives were mythical; something you had but never used, like a nuclear weapon. "He's just one guy with bad hair!" 

"He's a flaming killing machine, which you would know if you ever read your goddamn memos! Order beta team to intercept him - at least slow him down before he can get to the rest of us." 

"If he's just a mutant, why don't we - " But Jules didn't let him finish. 


	4. Part 4

"We don't have the personnel or any mutants capable of handling him. Hit the silent evac signal now," he ordered, turning around and making for the control room door. 

"Where d'ya think you're going?" 

"I'm evacuating!" He replied, going out the door. 

"You gutless wonder!" Jack shouted, stabbing the appropriate buttons. 

"I will be if Wolverine gets me!" Jules shouted back. He didn't get that comment at all. 

Looking back at the main security monitors, he saw an emergency response team scrambling to meet Wolverine as he came to the first checkpoint. They were screaming at him to put his hands on his head and kneel on the floor, back turned to them, aiming high powered automatic rifles at his face. But he didn't stop; he didn't even slow down. 

He was such a cool customer he seemed to be singing quietly, but not so low that the security mikes didn't pick it up. "Can you just go home defeated? Take your pride and eat it? Crawl back beaten, sources are depleted. Can you take the final hit and admit that you were wrong?" 

"On your knees, Wolverine! Now!" The big voiced Colonel Hopkins shouted. 

"Freeze," Wolverine said, and all ten soldiers seemed to do just that. They didn't move a muscle, didn't even twitch a trigger finger as he came up to them, singing again. "Don't even call it even, bleedin' is believing.For my well-being we're closing for the season.Can you take the final hit and admit that you don't belong?" 

What the fuck was this shit? 

"Beaten six ways to Sunday, beaten six ways to Sunday now. You're gonna have to leave it; you know you'll never need it. Wait 'til you see what we've planned for you." He then stopped in front of the frozen tableau of soldiers and cocked his head, as if studying them under a microscope. "Bedtime, Bonzos," he said, and all the men suddenly collapsed to the floor - all but Hopkins. 

Uh oh. This was bad. This was so fucking bad. Jack knew he should be doing the rabbiting thing like Jules, but he was strangely rapt by all this. Why did they call him Wolverine? He seemed like some kind of telepath. 

"Where will the big boys be hiding, Hopkins?" Wolverine asked. He knew Hopkins? 

Hopkins replied flatly, not even looking at him, "Upper level two." 

Jack felt a stab of fear through his heart. Son of a bitch - he just ratted them out! He didn't even try to resist or even lie! 

"Any mutants around here?" Wolverine continued. He didn't even sound angry or annoyed, just curious. What the fuck was going on? Was this some kind of test? A drill? 

"No. There was a housecleaning two weeks ago." 

"A housecleaning? Do you mean a massacre?" 

"Several were terminated - others were sent to other branch offices." 

"Where are these branch offices?" 

Jack tried too will him to keep his fucking tattletale mouth shut, but oh no, he told him all right. "Osaka,Japan; Quito, Ecuador; Nairobi, Kenya; Helsinki, Finland; and Srinagar, Kashmir." 

"These aren't all the bases, are they?" 

"No, only the ones I know." 

"How many mutants died here?" 

"Seven, that I know of." 

"And you felt nothing for them, did you?" 

"No. It's us or them." 

"Well, of course it is. Absolutely everything's that obvious and cut and dried, isn't it?" Not only had Wolverine's voice taken on a coldly sarcastic tone, but he would swear he heard the hint of an Australian accent in there. Was he mocking Hopkins? "You're going to mourn those deaths, Rupert. You're going to be so crippled with guilt you can barely function." 

"No," he said, but his voice broke, and finally he moved. But hard assed Rupert Hopkins, the coldest thing on two legs ( well, besides Jack's ex wife ), suddenly broke into wracking sobs, burying his face in his hands. Jack just stared, gobsmacked, at the scene playing out on his monitor. This was totally fucking unbelievable. 

"You are going to renounce violence, and for the rest of your life you will try and atone for your hideous crimes. Now get walking, and keep walking, until you find a place where you can do some good." 

Hopkins did as Wolverine told him to do. He got up, and walking towards the door, he cast aside his weapons, and shed his body armor. He walked straight out and never looking back, crying all the while. 

This had to be a joke. The upper echelon had to be playing a trick on them. What kind of shit was this? 

A flashing light in the corner of his eye made him glance away, and he realized the countdown was on - ten minutes to self-destruct. Shit, he had to get out of here. 

But as he swiveled his chair away, in preparation of leaving the security station,he suddenly heard Wolverine say, "And where do you think you're going?" 

He didn't want to turn back and look, but he couldn't stop himself; he felt bizarrely distant from his own body. Jack turned around, and found Wolverine smiling up into a security camera, as if looking straight at him. 

He knew with a sudden chill he could feel throughout his entire body that Wolverine was somehow seeing him, and he could not look away from his bright blue eyes, that almost seemed to glow. Jack wanted to move, but he couldn't; he wasn't sure he could even breathe. 

"It's no fair tryin' to blow the place up," Wolverine said, and now he did have an Australian accent. "Stop it, Jack." 

He supposed, if he had control of his body, he would have pissed his pants - he'd never heard of a telepath this powerful. And why the name Wolverine? Usually the code names made some sort of sense, but not his. He heard himself saying, "I can't. Once the chain reaction starts, there's no way to stop it." The rest of Hopkins' team was on the floor behind him; any one of them could have reared up, jabbed him with a paralyzer, and this whole thing would be over. But it sounded like at least one of those useless jackoffs was snoring. 

"Oh really?" Wolverine's eyes seem to flare with an inhuman blue light, and suddenly the flashing light, warning of the self-destruct trigger, stopped. According to the internal gauges, so had the chain reaction. "Never say never, Jacko." 

That was impossible. How did he do that? Was he a telekinetic too? 

He wanted to move, to run, especially since Wolverine was now headed for the lifts, but he couldn't move - he still wasn't in control of his body or his mind. He was just going to sit here and wait for Wolverine to come and get him. He wasn't just helpless - he was completely and utterly hopeless. 

Now he knew why Jules had turned tail. He wasn't a killing machine, as far as he could tell; he was simply unstoppable. 

"Can you just go home hated, half intoxicated, hopelessly outdated, and not appreciated. Can you take the final blow and know that you fucked up?" 

Jack wondered if he was singing that just for him. 

10 

    Logan decided to simply wait for the other vamps to come to him; play possum, in other words. 

The fire was a roaring blaze now, lighting up the clearing like dawn, and he knew Maddie's time was running out, if it wasn't all gone already. But he knew she wasn't dead yet, as Steve was still arguing with her. 

But the next vampire was smart.  He didn't get close, he simply threw a knife, which Logan saw as a blur in the corner of his eye, but couldn't react fast enough to slice it in mid-air. So it imbedded itself in his neck. 

It was a damn good shot. Not only did it hurt stabbing through his flesh, but the fall backwards was genuine; for a second he couldn't breathe, and he could feel the blood pouring down his neck. Only then did he realize his blood smelled funny, kind of sour. He was attacked by something that kind of smelled like that earlier, right? 

He closed his eyes and played mortally wounded, aware that vampires could smell death as well as he could - there'd be no bluffing them there. Two approached, but stayed out of slashing distance. To make it more realistic, he had retracted his claws. 

"I can't believe he'd still be goin' after a Rhedoc got him," one of them said. He sounded like he was from Louisiana. 

"I didn't even know Rhedoc's came this far North," his friend said. He sounded like a West Coaster, maybe Californian. 

"You know, we coulda made it work!" Steve shouted at the house. Logan didn't know if he was a bad liar before the vamping, or if it was just an effect of being a vampire. 

The Laurel and Hardy of vampdom moved closer, and he knew now they were in range. The blood flow had slowed from his neck, but it hadn't quite healed up yet. Was it because he still had the knife in his throat? 

"Just get the stupid bitch! " Bayou Boy shouted to Steve, and that's when Logan forced himself to move. 

He popped his claws on his left hand and stabbed the nearest one straight through the leg. As he screamed in pain, Logan screamed as well, the pain of making his right arm move, and pulled the knife out of his throat. The Bayou vampire lunged for him, and Logan, still on the ground, threw  the knife. 

In spite of the fact that California boy kicked him in the face with his working foot, he saw the knife hit home, straight into Bayou Boy's right eye. He made a sort of horrified gasp, and screamed, "My fucking eye!" Logan ripped his claws out of California Boy's leg, and he stumbled back, stepped on his now injured leg incorrectly, and yelped in pain as he fell back on his ass. 

Logan sat up and rode out another devastating head rush as Bayou Boy made several noises just short of a gag as he pulled the knife from his eye socket, and he moaned, "There's Rhedoc tainted blood on this thing!" 

Rhedocs affected vampires too? Poor fucking baby. 

"Don't you die? Are you immortal?" California Boy asked, exasperated, as he started dragging himself away by his hands, dragging his butt and his legs across the ground. 

"I'm the avatar for the Drai'Shajan," he said, and he had no idea if that was true, or what that meant. But he knew instinctively it would end the fight now. 

It pretty much did. California Boy stared at him in wide eyed fear, and Bayou Boy, who was trying to shove the ruins of his eye back in their socket, said, "What the fuck is that?" 

"Oh holy shit. Steve, we should abort now!" California Boy shouted. "The Drai'Shajan knows we want to free Qanlon!" 

Logan was sure that was important, but it was so much gibberish to him now. 

"What the fuck's a Drai'Shajan?!" Steve shouted back, as much an ignorant shithead as Bayou Boy. 

Cali Boy had reached the edge of the clearing, and used a tree to pull himself to his feet. He didn't look well, but he seemed more frightened than hurt. "A thing that could kill us just by showing up! If this mutie's really acting as his avatar, we can't kill him - fuck, we probably can't even hurt him!" 

"He's Rhedoc tainted!" Bayou Boy pointed out. He had his hand clamped firmly over his right eye, as if trying to hold it in, in spite of the blood and vitreous humor now streaking that side of his face. He seemed to be unsteady on his feet, and he wondered if some of that Rhedoc shit was setting in. It must have had a straight shot to the brain. Whatever there was of it. 

"That could be a cover, you moron! Fuck the rest of you, I'm outta here!" And with that, Cali Boy limped off into the woods. After glaring at him with his one eye, Bayou Boy snarled at him and threw the knife, but Logan knew without even moving a muscle that it was going to miss. It thunked into the dirt beside him as the one eyed vamp followed his smarter friend into the woods. The Canadian and the Latina also looked like they now thought better of this whole thing, and both being lame and unable to stand up straight at this point, what else could they do? 

Only Steve was left, and he was too stupid to leave. Logan saw him approaching, but couldn't move fast enough - he couldn't bounce to his feet, nor avoid the flaming tree branch swung at his head. "I don't care if yer Arakis herself," he snapped, as the branch impacted with his skull. It was thick enough that it cracked on impact but didn't break, and his fist layer of skin burnt off on his forehead, and he could smell charred hair. But he was in so much pain right now, Steve couldn't possibly hurt him any more; crawling back into the flames actually sounded like a wonderful idea right now. "You ain't stopping me now, freak!" 

As he took a batting stance and swung a second time, Logan was able to get a claw up to meet it, and the blazing branch was sliced neatly in half, its flaming first half flying off into the trees behind him. He tried to move his right arm to stab him, but it seemed to lock up completely and refuse his commands. 

Steve looked down at him, holding the half a branch like a spear, leering at him like easy prey. "Congrats for scaring the others off, but I ain't that dumb, freak-o. You're in pretty sad shape, you know. Almost too easy to kill." 

"You're the dumbest man I know!" Maddie shouted, jabbing the stake at Steve's back. 

But she didn't jab hard enough, and she was a little too far to the right anyways; Logan was pretty sure it didn't even scrape his skin. 

He spun on his heels, knocking her stake away, and grabbed her by the throat, tossing the pointless tree branch into the fire. "I'm not in the ground two weeks and you already got yourself a fuck buddy - and an ugly, mutie fuck buddy at that." 

She tried to respond, but could only squeak. Steve had her so tight by the throat he was lifting her up; her toes were barely scraping the ground. Sitting up caused another head rush he had to ride out; he just wasn't doing well. Time was running out. 

Maddie tried to kick him, but that only made Steve laugh. The fact that she was an ex probably made killing her icing on the cake. "Now, I could give you the chance to hand it over, but where's the fun in that?" 

Logan made himself stand, and he knew, since he was down to time on how long he'd be conscious, that the time for fucking around was over. He simply lopped off Steve's arm at the shoulder, and since it was the one that had Maddie in a chokehold, they both hit the ground. Before Steve could react at all, he punched his left claws through Steve's left shoulder, and forced his right hand to grab him by the back of his neck. He could move it a little easier if he was upright. "Now listen to me, bub," he snarled in his ear. "I'm gonna lop off all your limbs and leave you as the Human torso, to either get burned by the flames or by the sun, if your vamp pals don't come back for ya and decide to keep you in their trunk as a pet. You got five seconds to talk, Black Knight, or the left arm goes. I'll then take off your legs, and your dick, if Maddie has a microscope on her - " 

"Okay, okay!" He shouted, nearly hysterical, looking down at his arm forlornly. That was probably his wanking hand. "Fuck, what do you want me to say?" 

"What the fuck is the Dragon's Eye and why do you want it?" 

"The demon lord Qanlon was imprisoned as a statue by these fucking witches. The key to setting him free is the Dragon's Eye-he promised us immortality if we freed him." 

"I thought you vamps were immortal," he grumbled, thinking aloud, but them he figured it out before Steve could tell him. "Oh, wait-really immortal? As in unkillable, even by wood and sunlight?" 

He nodded frantically, but stopped as soon as he realized the movement was making his shoulder hurt. Maddie was on her feet, grabbing her throat but otherwise looking okay. "You really that afraid to die, Steve?" Logan growled in his ear. "You're already dead." 

And although it took a great effort on his part, he managed to pop the claws of his right hand, which plunged straight through Steve's neck. He only had to pull his dead hand aside to decapitate him, and Steve exploded into a pillar of dust. Maddie stared at him all the way through it, rubbing her reddening neck. "When he said witches he didn't mean Wiccans, did he?" She asked, her voice raspy and hoarse. 

He shrugged, but with his left shoulder only. He had his hips locked so he wouldn't collapse face first in Steve dust. "Prob'ly not, no." 

She eyed him suspiciously. "Are you okay?" 

"Peachy." 

She scowled at him. Not a fan of sarcasm, then. 

"We oughta get out of here before this becomes a forest fire." In spite of the howling winds and pelting rain, the house was completely engulfed, and the fire showed no sign of dying down any time soon. 

She looked back, and he knew she was shocked and baffled and probably suffering from minor smoke inhalation, but he had to get her to focus, because he didn't know how much longer he could hang on. "Yeah. I have to get you to a hospital." 

"I don't need a hospital," he pointed out, but he couldn't blame her if she wasn't listening to him. 

She seemed to get that he couldn't walk out under his own steam, so she came up to him and draped his left arm around her shoulders. He wanted to protest, but didn't dare, because he wasn't sure he could walk on his own. She smelled like pine smoke. 

He tried not to lean too heavily on her as they made their way back to her car, which looked like the vamps had gone through it, but they hadn't bothered to make it any worse, probably because they figured they were dead anyways. As she helped him into the car, he pointed out, "Back tire's still blown." 

She shrugged. "I don't care- I just want to get the fuck out of here." 

He had to agree with her there. 

She backed them out, although it was a hellaciously rough ride, and once they were back on the road, he could hear the rim of the blown wheel grinding pavement and spitting sparks. It was a good thing she wasn't leaking gas. "Do you think they were inferring my grandmother was a witch?" She wondered. 

"Maybe. Don't know." He could feel the weight of his body now, the heavy adamantium weighing down his bones, stretching his muscles to their breaking point, binding him hard to gravity. He wondered if he ever felt any different. "I wouldn't worry about it." 

One hand on the steering wheel, she used the other to unclasp the necklace, and tossed it to him. "Keep it safe. I know you'd do better than me." 

"You can keep it, hon. I know a guy who'll make sure Qanlon stays frozen forever, Eye or no Eye." Logan instantly wondered who that guy was. 

"I'm sure, but I think I'd feel better never seeing that thing ever again." 

Very slowly, he realized he never told her it was the necklace. "You figured it out." 

"Well, it was kind of obvious, wasn't it?" 

"It's an heirloom." 

"That almost got me killed. Take it." 

He made a show of grabbing it, but then let it fall out of his hand to the floor. She might change her mind later,  and if so, she'd find it on the floor of her car. "You don't have to worry about it, you know. As soon as my friend freezes Qanlon, it's just a necklace." 

"I know, but I'd rather not have it, ya know?" She then let out a little snort of laughter, and said, "I don't know your name." 

"Logan." 

"Logan. Thanks." After a brief pause, she asked, "Kill a lot of vampires?" 

"It's a hobby." He was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open; his eyelids felt weighted down with lead. But he knew once he kept them shut, he might not be opening them again any time soon. 

"You really need a hospital." 

"No, I don't. I'm a mutant." 

"So?" 

"They don't treat us very well." A partial lie; it sort of depended. "And I've had bad experiences with hospitals." That was only a partial lie too. Did a quasi-military hospital count? 

"I can't let you bleed to death." 

"I gotta friend, Jean, she's a doctor. She'll help me." That just popped into his head. He hoped it was true. 

"Where is she? I can drop you off. Once I get a tire." 

"New York." Again, he was pretty sure that was true. 

She made a negative noise. "Man, how's she gonna help you from there?" 

"She's a mutant too. Doesn't matter where I am, she can get to me." 

"Oh." It sounded like she wasn't sure if she should believe him or not. What did she know about mutants? "Are you sure?" 

"Yeah." No, of course he wasn't - he wasn't sure about anything, except he was reasonably certain that he was dying  in increments; very slowly, at a snail's pace, one inch at a time. The why of it was baffling. 

She gave him a dubious glance, but let it go, probably because she'd already figured arguing with him was a losing proposition. 

He had no idea how long it was before they hit some sign of civilization; all the bleak black landscape outside the window blurred together, and the fact that he was fighting to stay conscious probably didn't help. Hie right arm no longer hurt; it was now numb and cold, and felt like a hunk of frozen meat stapled to his shoulder. He didn't know if it was still bleeding or not. 

But soon they hit the oasis of modern America - the gas station and the convenience store. She drove into the gas station, and as blurry as his vision was, he was pretty sure he saw a pay phone in front of the store. "I'm gonna go over and call," he told her, using his left hand to open the door. "Thanks for the lift." 

She scoffed. "Don't thank me. I did you no favors." 

He let her have that. Maybe she was right - he didn't really know anymore. 

He had to focus and concentrate to move, to stand up, and he had to hang on to the door for a minute, until he was sure he could keep upright and walk. He made it, somehow, but once he reached the phone kiosk he had to lean against it for support as he tried to remember Jean's number. He felt eyes on him, but figured it was Maddie making sure he didn't fall on his face. 

He wasn't sure he had any money, but he had some. He wasn't sure he remembered the right number either, but he punched it in, and sat down on the cold cement, leaning against the pay phone for support. 

Logan wondered if anyone would answer the phone before he passed out. 

11 

    Jean knew she'd be sorry, but once she yawned, she gulped down a swig of coffee, and hoped the caffeine kicked in soon. 

She would have preferred to be in bed, but medical emergencies took precedence. At least Bobby was okay - all he needed was some fluids ( she put him on an i.v. drip for now ) and a good night's sleep, and he'd be fine.  
It was a good thing Scott had gone after them - they must have forgot that there was a GPS transponder in the car they borrowed - although it was troubling as well. The organization was still recruiting mutants by force? And children at that. The Professor was using Cerebro now to try and find the girl who caused the earthquake - what a power to have - and Jean hoped they found her before the Organization did. Scott had said she said something about "not going back there" - what had they done to her? 

She shuddered in sympathy. Poor girl. She must have been completely terrified. 

"You're still up?" Ororo said, standing in the open doorway of her office. 

She looked up, surprised. "I could say the same thing about you." Ororo was wearing a blue peasant style blouse and tan suede pants so tight they looked painted on, as well as several wooden bracelets and beaded necklaces that clacked when she moved. "Have a date?" 

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Who has a personal life around here? No, I went to the Yusef El-Talib concert down at that club in midtown. Remember, I told you about it last week?" 

"Oh, right." Actually, she could barely recall it. He was one of those "world" musicians, specializing in some form of music involving obscure instruments and possibly bongos; not unpleasant, but not her type of thing. "How was it?" 

"Good. Very relaxing. You do remember what that word means, don't you?" 

"Good?" 

"Relaxing." 

"That's Norwegian, isn't it?" 

Ororo smirked at her lame joke. "At least you're keeping your sense of humor about it. So what's up? Please don't tell me you had a fight with Scott." 

She gazed at her curiously, a small frown line forming between her brows. "Why would you think I had a fight with Scott?" 

"Well, it's just that you two have been - " She tapered off at the look Jean was giving her, and said instead, "So what's up?" 

Jean put her cup down on her cluttered desk ( who had time to neaten anything at one in the morning? ), and asked, "What have we two been?" 

She looked briefly panicked, and then seemed to recall something that calmed her. "You're in a valley, remember?" 

"Oh yes." This was a topic she really wanted to avoid, so - much to Ororo's relief - she informed her of what went on at the illegal rave ( did they call them that anymore? ), and how the search was on for one more hunted mutant. She seemed appropriately sympathetic for the girl and disturbed by the other implications. 

"But Bobby's okay?" 

"He's fine, just sleeping it off. So is Rogue, although she's sleeping off something completely different." 

Ororo grimaced in sympathy. "We all did stupid things at that age." 

"Yes, but Rogue seems to be developing a real talent for it." 

"Let me guess - Scott is blaming Logan for this." 

Jean couldn't help but smile. "How'd you guess?" 

"Has the Professor had any luck in locating her?" 

"Not yet, but he only just started. Scott is on line now, checking for any seismic activity in - " She was interrupted by the ringing of the phone on her desk. Both she and Ororo stared at it as if expecting it to jump up and bite them. Her phone never rang this late. 

Sometimes she could get a sense of who was calling before she picked up the phone, but sometimes she couldn't. Unlike the Professor, who not only knew who was calling but why, she hadn't honed that ability yet, and she didn't think she really needed to. But looking at the phone now she wished she had worked on it - she wasn't getting anything right now. 

Reluctantly, she picked up the receiver. "Hello?" Maybe it was a wrong number. 

For a moment, there was nothing. No, that wasn't completely true - she heard the distant, sporadic hum of cars driving by on a road, and a tinny howl that could have been the wind. She was just about to give this up as a prank call when she heard a groggy, faint, "Jean?" 

It took her a moment to recognize the voice. "Logan?" She instantly knew something was wrong with him - his voice never sounded so weak. 

It sounded like he grunted a small laugh. "How 'bout that? I did remember the number." 

"What's wrong?" She glanced  up at Ororo, who was now giving her a concerned look. She was probably thinking there was trouble, but not like this. 

"I'm - I seem to be hurt." He said it like it was funny, but his voice was so faint it was almost lost in the crackling of static on line. 

Her stomach clenched in cold fear. "Your healing factor isn't kicking in?" Now Ororo looked startled, brows raising high on her smooth forehead. Logan put himself in harm's way so much, and so much out of habit, that if he had no healing factor he was as good as dead. 

"Naw, I don't think so. I mean, I can't see the bone anymore, but the wound just doesn't seem to be closing. " 

She winced, and was glad he couldn't see her face. Only Logan could casually dismiss an exposed bone. "Where is this wound? How big is it? Is it still bleeding?" Ororo was now gripping the door frame, looking pale. Jean felt the same way, but out of habit snapped into professional diagnostic mode. It was just easier that way. 

"Uh, it's on my right arm. I think I got it ... I dunno, an hour ago? More or less ... I ain't keepin' track of time so well right now. It hurt like fuck for a long time, but now it's numb. I can't tell if it's bleeding or not, it's kind of a mess. And I can't move it anymore." 

She closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. An open wound for almost an hour? If he had severed an artery and his healing ability hadn't kicked in, he'd be dead by now, so she assumed no major blood vessels had been severed or compromised. But nevertheless he must have lost a lot of blood - no wonder he sounded so weak. "Can you get to a hospital, Logan?" 

"I ain't goin' to any hospital, Jeannie." 

She thought as much. She couldn't blame him really; she wasn't sure they'd ever be able to look past the metal bonded to his skeleton, a virtual medical impossibility. "Where are you?" 

He scoffed weakly. "I have no fuckin' clue." 

She covered the mouthpiece of the phone, and told Ororo in a rushed whisper, "Go tell the Professor he needs to locate Logan, now. It's an emergency." 

She wanted to ask, but she understood now was not the time. She simply nodded and took off for Cerebro at a run. 

"I'm so tired." Logan muttered. She could barely hear him. 

"I know, but you have to stay awake for me, okay?" He couldn't be dying, could he? But if his healing factor didn't activate, and he had more than one wound ... "Talk to me. What happened? How did you get injured?" 

For a moment she heard only white noise, and felt a shock of fear that he had passed out, or worse. But finally - and somewhat painfully - he said, " I can't really remember. I think there was this thing ..." 

"Thing?" 

"I got somethin' in my system, I think. It's makin' my mind fuzzy. Well, fuzzier." 

"So you don't remember what happened?" Okay, this was very bad - his immune system could handle almost any drug, any contagion, any toxin. If it wasn't fighting this off, it was possible the failure of his healing was internal - and widespread. 

"Not really, no." He scoffed again. "I'm helpful, ain't I?" 

"No, you're doing fine." 

"Don't talk to me like that." 

"Like what?" 

"Like I'm a patient in need of coddling. I know what's goin' on here." 

She almost asked what, but she knew - even he thought he was dying. But she didn't give up that easily, especially not on a person who normally had the most extraordinary healing gift she had ever seen. "Your arm - is it just numb, or is it paralyzed?" 

"I don't know. What's the difference?" 

"If you touch your skin on that arm, can you feel it? Can you move your fingers?" 

There was a moment of silence,  during which she assumed he was trying to find out. "I can kinda feel it, but I can't move my fingers." 

Christ. "Where is the wound? Above your elbow or below? How large is it? I'll assume it's deep." 

"It's above the elbow, but it's missed the deltoid nerve cluster, so I don't think that's been affected. And it's about ... four inches long?" 

Deltoid nerve cluster? She made a mental note to add that to the list of Logan's peculiarities: sophisticated anatomical knowledge. "And there's been no change since you received it? Except you can no longer see bone and it's numb? And you're sure this is the only wound you have?" 

"Yeah ... pretty sure." 

She suddenly heard the Professor's voice inside her mind. *Logan is sitting in front of a convenience store in Blackwater, Michigan. He was hard to pinpoint - he's severely injured, isn't he?* 

*He seems to be. Something's keeping him from healing.* 

*Storm is readying the jet.* 

*Thank you.* She went back to Logan. "Storm and I are going to come for you. But I want you to remain where you are, and try and keep conscious. Can you do that?" 

"I'll do my best, darlin', but I can't promise anything. I've been upright too long." 

"Please, do this for me. We'll be there as fast as we can." 

"Yeah." There was a pause before he added, "Thanks," and hung up. 

Jean cradled the receiver somewhat reluctantly, and then bolted to her feet and headed for the underground hangar at a run. 

She no longer needed coffee to keep her awake. 


	5. Part 5

12 

    She really hated playing the "helpless female" shit, but sometimes it got you out of stuff. 

For instance, Maddie knew how to change a tire, but the pimply faced teenager holding down the thankless graveyard shift at the gas station was happy to do it for her, even though that kind of thing was no longer in his job description. She had a spare, but not a jack or a tire iron; the station did, although they looked brand new and never used. 

So while the kid fumbled with the lug nuts and vaguely flirted with her as he clumsily put on her left rear tire, hoping for her number or at least a little gratitude, while she kept looking back at Logan, sitting on the curb outside the quick mart, propped up against the pay phone. 

He could have been a derelict or a homeless guy who picked a bad place to crash, and she bet the clerk in the store -if she saw him - or anyone driving by thought that, thereby rendering him invisible. But that was far from true, and she couldn't help but wonder what his story was. 

Where did the questions stop? He knew about vampires and all that shit-he even knew how to kill them. Why? Sure, he was a mutant, but did that automatically predispose him to freaky shit like this? He helped her - why? He didn't have to - fuck, she ran him over, even if he didn't remember it - but he did anyway, even as bad off as he was. And through it all he was so cool; he never lost it once, even when the place was burning down, even when he was getting beaten by vampires. The guy was fucking fearless. She envied him; she admired him. And she never noticed how attractive he was before now. 

Oh Christ, she had the worst taste in men. She needed therapy. Better yet, she needed to go to the arctic and live with penguins or something, just get away from people and their freaky shit. It would be better for everyone. 

But she hoped he was okay. He didn't look okay; he looked like he was dying. But he wasn't even giving into fear about that. That was balls, but then again, so was taking on all those vampires. 

She was really having a hard time believing vampires existed. And where had Steve met one anyways? 

The kid was just about done with her tire when she noticed something odd. It took her a moment to figure out what the problem was, but she finally got it - the wind was gone. She had gotten so used to its persistent howling that it became background noise, but now it was gone, and almost eerily still. So were the leaden rain clouds. How had they cleared off so fast with no wind? In spite of the lights of the service station, she could see a yellow silver of moon, and a smattering of pale stars in the black sky. Since when did storms act that funny? Weren't changes gradual? 

Just as she was pondering the oddity of all of this,she heard another noise. It was a low roar, like thunder  in the distance, but how could you have thunder without clouds? She would have sworn there was the slightest rumble under her feet too, like a big rig passing by on the highway, but there had been no truck driving by on the road. 

Maybe it was because of all this vampire shit, but instantly she was paranoid. Something weird was going on, and she didn't know if it was a threat to her or not. Her first impulse was to go ask Logan, but wasn't he dealing with enough? 

In a couple of minutes, the weirdness came to Logan. 

These two women came walking out of an alley behind the convenience store, and after looking around briefly, headed straight for him. One was a tall redhead with an unfortunate ponytail, and the other was a shorter black woman with long white hair. What did that woman do to her hair? Who told her that was a good look? 

It was so quiet, she could kinda of hear them talking. "Logan?" She was pretty sure that was the redhead talking, because she reached him first, crouching down in front of him. She reached out and touched his face. "Oh god ... are you still with me?" 

He moved very slowly, but he looked up at her. "Yeah. Where else would I go?" 

"Storm, help me get him up," she said, moving so she could take his injured arm. 

"I don't need help," he protested weakly, but it was clear he did. 

Storm? Did that woman call the white haired woman Storm? Was that a coincidence? 

The redhead - Doctor Jean, she assumed - examined his arm carefully before draping it over her shoulders. The other woman got his good arm around her shoulders, and knowing from experience how heavy he was, she was sure they'd collapse. But somehow they managed, although it looked like they would have rather hit the ground. She wondered if one of them was his girlfriend. 

They started helping him back the way they had come, and only then did Maddie realize if they had come from New York, they must have broken the sound barrier. How could they have gotten here that fast? Well, they were mutants too, right? Mutants could do all sorts of weird things. Look at Logan - he had Ginsus in his hands, and seemed to be able to take a lot of damage and keep going ( although maybe that was a personality thing, a stubborn, testosterone fueled "Giving up is for pussies" kind of deal ). Except for his arm. What happened to his arm? 

She wanted to go after them, see where they were taking him, but the geek had finished with her tire, and she knew she couldn't just walk off now. Logan was with "his people", so he should be fine. But she was a little sad that she probably wasn't going to see him ever again. She hoped he had a good life. As free of vampires as possible. 

Actually, she was rather hoping for that herself too. 

13 

    She knew he would be bad, but she still hadn't expected him to be this bad. 

Jean used a little of her telekinesis to hold Logan up, and to lighten the heavy burden that he was so they could make it back to the jet. He was semi-conscious at best, his pupils dilated and eyes glassy, and he still had the ghost tracings of bruises on his face and inexplicable second degree burns on his forehead. And his arm - good god, his arm. He reeked of blood and smoke - and not cigar smoke either, wood smoke. She wondered how that related to the burns on his forehead. 

Even Storm recognized that Logan was beyond merely hurt, and hovering somewhere in the seriously injured category. Unlike Bobby, who had simply tired himself out by trying to use his powers too hard and too fast, Logan looked beaten half to death. But Jean asked her to go to the cockpit and just get them the hell out of here - the sooner they could get him back to the mansion, the better, as the medical equipment she had here was very limited. 

She didn't really even have a place to put him - they had to lay him out on the floor in the rear compartment. As soon as Storm left for the cockpit, she pulled out all the medical supplies she had brought with her, and knew they were inadequate. But what could be adequate for Logan with a malfunctioning healing factor?  
"Talk to me, Logan," she said, as she got an oxygen canister from an overhead compartment. She might not need it - she hoped she didn't - but she knew she had to prepare for the worst. He didn't answer, so she said, much more forcefully, "Talk to me." Until she could determine if he had a head injury, she wanted to keep him conscious. 

"What's there to say?" He mumbled. His words sounded loose, and under any under circumstances she might have said he was drunk, but since he couldn't get drunk, that wasn't possible. Of course, without a healing factor, he could, but he didn't smell like alcohol. 

"Anything, I don't care," She said. "Tell me what happened that you can remember." She sat down beside him on the floor, and using scissors, carefully cut away what remained of the sleeves of clothing on his right arm. They were tacky and black with old blood, but just wet enough that she knew it was still bleeding. 

"Uh, there were these vampires working for something called Qanlon. Lame ass deal all the way around." 

"Vampires?" It was bad enough she had accepted this; it was worse that she was wondering if they could have hurt him this much. "Did they do this to you?" 

His hazel green eyes locked onto her face, but she could tell he was having a hard time focusing. His eyes looked like they were made of glass. "Naw, it was a wimp brigade all the way around. If I wasn't hurtin' so much, I coulda dusted them all in a minute." 

"So you encountered them after you were hurt?" 

"Yeah." 

She tried to memorize the name Qanlon, so if she called Bob for help, she'd know at least a little of what to tell him, whether it was related to his injury or not. Who knew if it was important? 

She pulled away the soppy, shredded remains of his sleeve, and found his arm was so crusted and black with blood it was hard to say where the injury started and where it ended. There were moistened towelettes in one of the emergency kits, and she used one to try and clean up the area enough so she could see exactly what she was dealing with. "I have to admit I don't understand. Were you attacked by a demon?" 

"Maybe. The vamps said somethin' about a Rhedoc poisoning my blood, but I have no idea what they meant." 

Even though he probably couldn't see her, she was careful to keep her expression neutral, free of any emotional response. He didn't need that right now. "Poison how? And is a Rhedoc a demon?" 

"I don't know either way. But I guess." 

She had cleared enough old blood away to see it was a mostly even vertical slash, about three inches wide and about five inches long. Through it she could still see the striations of muscle tissue, the ragged tear at the edge of the skin, and ... what was that? Maybe it was old blood that had fallen in the wound when she was cleaning it, but it looked like small black spots. Logan was right about the wound missing the deltoid nerve cluster, but not for lack of trying; it was a close thing. It also looked like something had tried to cut off his arm, but found it couldn't - the adamantium, of course. 

He shivered, and that shook her out of her horrified fascination with the wound. "Are you cold?" A stupid question, but only now did it finally occur to her he might be in shock. It was hard to think of Logan being as frail as the rest of them. 

"You guys have the a.c. on too high," he said, as she pulled out an emergency thermal blanket and spread it over him. She didn't have the heart to tell him they didn't have the air conditioning on. 

Mentally she kicked herself for leaving shock out of the equation - after losing so much blood, of course he'd be in shock. How could he not be? At least she knew now that keeping him conscious had been the right thing. She moved his right arm so it would stay outside the blanket, and realized it felt stiff, like the muscles were going into rigor mortis - holy shit, what was that? 

"Keep talking," she told him, as she searched the small kit for the drugs it had. Ironically, here was an anti-venom and medications for several illnesses, but nothing for demon poisoning or any other kind of poisoning. There were medications for pain of various strengths, but she had no idea if any of them would work on him. 

"Do I have to?" He said. But he did as she asked. "I'm sorry to put you through this." 

"You're not putting me through anything," she said absentmindedly, setting up a portable monitor. She needed to get an idea of how his vital functions were holding up. Rather than tear open his shirt ( although that sounded fun ), she attached the electrodes to the side of his neck, figuring she'd get a good enough reading. 

His eye met hers as she looked down at him, and he said, "You know, it's funny." 

"What?" She activated the monitor, and his vital statistics started to pop up on the digital readouts. His blood pressure was amazingly low - typical for a shock victim, and for someone who had lost a lot of blood - so low she didn't know how he was still conscious. His heart rate was also troublingly slow ( for Logan - she'd learned enough about him to know his heart rate differed from the standard norms ) and somewhat erratic, but considering he was in shock, that was to be expected. 

"I don't think I wanna die right now. I've wanted to die for so long, Jean." 

She looked down at him, startled. "What?" She knew about his supposed suicide attempts in the past - Heydon taunted her with them and she couldn't believe it, but Bob had all but confirmed it as true. Even at her lowest - and she had had her moments - she'd never even come close to thinking she'd rather be dead. And while she could understand others getting that depressed, she couldn't fathom Logan - stubborn, irritating, "never say die"  Logan - dropping to such depths that not only would he think about killing himself, but that he'd actually try it. Repeatedly. 

Maybe all his bluster and desire to rush head long into danger was just another form of attempted suicide. 

She gazed down at him, and said, "Don't say that." She ignored the irony. 

" 's true. Aren't people with syndromes always suicidal?" He tried to smile, but it was very weak, and for the first time she noticed his lips were so pale they were virtually white. "It'd just be nice to stop, you know? Rest."  
He paused, then added, "To sleep, perchance to dream." 

She gave him a curious glance as she looked for a pressure bandage. The jet wasn't so perfectly stable that she felt good about giving him stitches up here, and he needed quite a few. She probably need to start an i.v. drip too, get some fluid in him, but the portable saline bag she had wouldn't be enough. Still, it would have to do until they could get him back to the mansion. "Aye, there's the rub," she replied, relatively sure that wasn't the next line, but she couldn't remember what it was right now. 

"Hamlet was a whiner," Logan said, almost dismissively. "I mean, damn - shit or get off the pot, man. Do something or don't, but don't whine about it for three hours." 

She couldn't help but chuckle. Only Logan could characterize Hamlet as "three hours of whining". Of course he was right, but still it was funny to hear it put so baldly. "I didn't realize you knew so much about Shakespeare." 

"I know a lot about a lot of things, I'm just not sure how." 

That was almost heartbreaking. He was so totally adrift in the world, unsure of his place in it, and the funny thing was - although Scott would argue with her about this - she was sure, underneath it all, Logan was a very erudite man ( he'd have to be to be so completely fluent in so many languages - his ability to smoothly jump back and forth between tongues without any problems was impressive ), or at least had been, until the Organization got ahold of him. Then they left his brain so scrambled he didn't even know his full name. 

"Are you in pain?" She asked, wondering if any of the drugs she had would work on him for a millisecond. Maybe she could give him a telepathic suggestion that he wasn't in pain - that could work. 

"Naw, I'm okay. Just cold and tired and feelin' delirious." 

She couldn't believe he was keeping a sense of humor about this. She didn't know how he did it. Or maybe it was just the delirium. "Okay. You might feel some pressure once I get this on - let me know if it hurts." She said, as she wrapped the pressure bandage over the gash on his arm. Okay, was it just that she hadn't cleaned enough old blood away, or did some of the veins in his arm, moving away from the injury site, look black? 

"It won't hurt. That arm's meat. I could lose it, I wouldn't know." 

That was frightening. But he was right - his arm was not only unnaturally stiff, but it was cold to the touch. She got the bandage on it, and there was no indication on his face that he felt it.  She went about setting up the i.v. drip in his left ( good ) arm, and he went on rambling, possibly to make her happy, or possibly because his shock induced delirium was getting worse."I don't regret anything I've done, you know? Not when I knew what I was doin'. But I regret we never got our act together, Jean." 

She gave him a surprised glance even as she slid the needle into his arm. Once again, there was no sign on his face that he felt it. "Logan - " 

"We coulda been pretty good, ya know?" 

She gave him a sad smile, and touched his face, feeling the scrape of his ubiquitous stubble against her palm. All his skin was apparently that cold; he felt like ice. She never really wanted to know how much blood he could lose before he stopped functioning, but she had a feeling they were both finding it out, whether they wanted to or not. "We still could be. I'm not going to let you die." 

He smiled at her, but it was faint, and something about it suggested he was humoring her. "I know." After a brief pause, he added," The raincheck's still good." 

She smiled and looked away, finishing setting up the i.v. bag. " I'll keep that in mind." He could never know what a tempting offer that had been. For a minute, she had actually contemplated taking him up on that, back in that park in Canada. Not that she'd ever cheat on Scott - she wasn't that type of person. But something about it had sounded ... alluring. Damn it, it was his fault! She was not one of those self-destructive women who was hopelessly drawn to "bad boys", but there was something damnedably, primally, irritatingly attractive about him. She liked to write it off as simply the mystery of him - he was so full of contradictions and paradoxes, and she did have this great urge to solve any puzzle she came across: was there any puzzle greater than Logan? - but it was probably more complicated than that. Wasn't everything? 

They'd never have worked as a couple in any way, shape, or form. But as Logan himself had said, "So what?" Yet she didn't have the courage necessary to take such a big risk as that, even though she knew that was probably another one of Logan's appeal - just throw caution to the wind and go for it, no matter what. His fears were far more complex than simple heartbreak. 

"Maybe it was for the best, you know?" He continued. "Everyone I've ever loved has been hurt or died, and I couldn't save them. Nothin' I could do could save 'em. That was the worst; that was always the worst. I wouldn't have cared if they just went for me, but that was never enough." 

She studied his face curiously, wondering what he remembered and what he was talking about. She knew about Naomi and what must have happened there, but the only woman she knew he'd been involved with beyond her was Helga, and not only was Helga fine, but still with Bob - as far as she knew, he had never been serious about her, and vice versa ( but she would never understand that whole Bob-Helga-Logan love triangle in a billion years, nor did she want to). "What do you mean? Naomi - " 

"You see her again, you apologize for me, okay? She deserved so much better." 

"You can tell her yourself." 

He smirked, and said, with obvious doubt, "Yeah, sure." His eyes were starting to close. He was forcing them open, but not for long. She wanted to encourage him to stay with her, but honestly, considering his poor vitals, she was surprised he'd made it this long. That proved he was superhuman if nothing else did. "Maybe Bob was wrong," he muttered, eyes closing once more. "Maybe I'll see Mariko again." 

"Mariko?" She asked. She'd never heard that name before. 

But he had finally lost consciousness - his head lolled to the side and his face went slack, eyes remaining closed. He'd fought as long as he could, but he just couldn't do it anymore. 

His vital signs - while still poor - were at least steady, and she found an ampule of medication that could be used for treating some symptoms of shock, but she wondered if it would work on Logan. Well, she had to try, didn't she? 

It reminded her that as soon as she could, she had to call Bob. Worse come to worst, he could always save him, no matter what. 

14 

    Well, that was disappointing. 

Bob realized, in retrospect, he had been too visible with the Org, although he was sure he had covered most of his tracks. According to Jack, they had purged all files relating to Wolverine that could be accessed on the Australian continent, because of the possibility of him "interfering". Well wasn't that a fine how do you do? 

He checked out the base before he left, but no, there was no useful information to be had, and no captive mutants to free. He left Jack to join the UNESCO, and left the rest of the soldiers sleeping in the hall - who was he to wake them? 

Bob had just left the dreary desert camouflaged cinderblock building when he felt reality invert, and the dimension turn itself inside out. 

A wave of disorientation passed over him before reality resolved itself once more. But this time, instead of orange sand dunes and high blue sky, he was standing on a field of glossy black stone under a red sky boiling with crimson and orange clouds, a disc of blue and green just visible in the right quadrant of the sky. 

And standing right before him was Eris, Osiris, and Fudo-Myoo. 

"Wow, no foreplay?" He asked, instantly shedding the Logan guise. They couldn't know who he was, and he didn't want them to know. Unlike what many very religious Humans thought, it usually wasn't in your best interest to have gods know exactly who you were. 

Eris looked just as she had before, only she had changed her beach gear for velvet robes more fit for a self-indulgent queen. Osiris looked an awful lot like the Roy Batty character in the "Blade Runner" movie, only with a hawk's gold and black eyes, and fingers that tapered into sharp ivory tips of exposed bone; it was really disturbing, and that's probably why he chose that guise, as he could be a twisted motherfucker. Fudo-Myoo, known to the Japanese as the guardian of wisdom and the personification of the virtue of perseverance ( and therefore possibly Logan's patron god ), chose the guise of a matronly looking older Asian woman, wearing a lovely turquoise silk gown, her heavily lacquered black hair held up by clips that looked like suns. "Sorry, Bob, but we're running out of time," Fudo said, polite as always. Fudo was one of the more polite gods he knew, next to Ganny, who was always thoughtful, if just a bit ungainly. ( Not his fault - being mostly elephant put some limits on you.) 

"You have had enough time," Eris said scoldingly. She was one of the ruder gods. 

"Enough time for what?" 

"To contemplate our offer," Osiris said. 

"Offer for what? All you said is you want me among you. What the hell for, and what's in it for me?" 

Osiris raised a single white-blonde eyebrow at him, his hawk eyes burning into his in an attempt to intimidate him. Osiris was powerful, but he still wasn't scared of him. "You would dismiss the elite so easily, peon?" 

Bob chuckled. "That's right, mate - blow sunshine up my skirt." 

"What are your reservations, Bob?" Fudo asked. 

"I don't sign a contract without knowin' what I'm gettin' into, okay?" 

"You've been among the Humans too long." Eris said coldly. 

"And who's fault is that?" 

"Not ours," Osiris pointed out. That was fair enough, but he wasn't letting him get off that easily. 

"But you could have recruited me at any time, and you didn't. So if you're doin' it now, it's only 'cause you want something from me. Truth time - what?" 

"It doesn't work that way," Eris replied, black, star speckled eyes looking straight through him. 

"Yes it does. Tell me or I walk, now." 

"You'd never," Osiris sneered, pale lips twisting in disgust at his defiance. 

Bob fixed him with a caustic stare. "Yes, I would. Would you like to see, Sy?" 

"This is why we need him," Fudo pointed out. 

"Because you've become so isolated you've completely lost your balls? Figurative balls, of course." 

Oh, they didn't like that. Eris came as close to expressing an emotion as he had ever seen, and Sy gave him a truly frightening scowl that seemed to gouge deep lines in his face. Fudo simply looked on impassively, letting the emotional fools have their little pissing contest. "You try my patience, peasant," Sy hissed, in a gravelly, inhuman voice. 

"Want to get it on?" Bob asked, then put up his fist and started bouncing around on his feet in a comical manner, like a cartoon boxer. "Come on, mano a mano ... er, divine being a exiled higher. C'mon, put 'em up, put 'em up!" 

Rage flared in Sy's eyes as he realized he was mocking him, and Eris snorted in disgust, but Fudo put an end to it before Sy could lash out. "There's been a disruption in the higher dimensions, that might have allowed Loki to free Fenrir from the damned dimension." 

Bob dropped his hands to his side. That explained a lot."What kind of disruption?" 

"We are not at liberty to say," Eris claimed. 

But Fudo contradicted her. "Ares and Ra are leading a group of elites who have decided we have been stagnant for too long." 

"You have been," he agreed. 

Sy's frown deepened, turning truly evil, and Eris's expression remained as cold as Antarctica, but Fudo went on smoothly, as perfectly unruffled as always. "They wish to make other dimensions more ... friendly to our kind. We are among those who do not wish to see that happen." 

"More friendly?" Oh, that wasn't good. "Are they plannin' to wipe out the Humans?" 

"We don't know their plans," Eris admittedly ruefully. 

"Except they have designs on you," Fudo said, clasping her delicate hands in front of her. 

"Do they?" That was surprising. Or maybe not. "Was Fenrir the first strike?" 

"We don't know if they were involved in that at all," Sy admitted, still giving him the stink eye. "But Loki was on their team." 

"Ooh, bad move there. Loki ain't much of a team player. Also, he's kind of a coward." 

"Indeed," Eris agreed. She hated Loki, and he had avoided her ever since she threatened to put out his head. Of course now he was avoiding everyone, although not voluntarily. 

"Think they may be p.o.'ed at me for abandoning him in the chaos realm?" 

"It is possible, if they know," Fudo said. "It is equally possible that they wish to recruit you to their side." 

"And kill me if I refuse?" A safe bet, that. Ares was a right cranky bastard. If there was anybody who seriously needed a good fuck, it was him. Not that it would help - nothing short of a full lobotomy would help him. 

"That is the assumption," Fudo agreed, with a dignified nod. 

"So what are you more interested in - recruitin' me first, or savin' my life?" He then laughed. "Ah, ask a stupid question ... " 

"The balance of the multiverse would be thrown off if anything were to become of you, Bob," Fudo said kindly. He always thought she/he had a bit of a crush on him. 

"If you do not choose our side, what makes you think we're letting you go?" Sy growled menacingly. 

Bob smiled at him. "Do you really think you can stop me, Sy?" 

"He can't, but I can," Eris said. It wasn't a threat ... yet. Just a point of fact. 

"What exactly is "your side"?" he wondered. "The status quo, I know, but what exactly are you planning to do?" 

Eris and Sy exchanged a glance best described as wary, and Fudo told him, "We have no plan as such." 

He crossed his arms and tried not to smirk. Oh what the hell. "Ah. So you want me for my brains and not my body? Oh man, what a disappointment." 

Only Fudo found that vaguely amusing, which was not a shock. "Are you going to assist us or not?" Sy growled. 

Bob simply stood there, gazing back at them casually, and wondered if he actually had a choice. 


	6. Part 6

15 

    "How is he?" Ororo asked, when she came up into the cockpit. 

Jean knew there was a first aid kit up here with a dose of fentanyl in it. Because it was basically a narcotic pain killer, she doubted it would work on Logan - nonetheless have a possibly averse effect on his already low blood pressure - but she was keeping it in mind as a last resort. If he was in pain, she wanted to have some way to help him, no matter how slight the effect. 

"Stable," she replied, as she retrieved the kit from beneath the copilot's seat. "He's in shock and he's lost a lot of blood, but he's Logan, so he's hanging in there. But he may need a transfusion." 

Ororo looked around from the controls, the shock naked on her face. "You're kidding." 

"I wish I was." 

"Why is his healing factor not working?" 

She sighed and leaned back in the passenger seat, feeling more tired than she had a right to be. She'd been trying to answer that question herself. She filled her in on the Rhedoc story he told her, even though she herself was not clear on it - she left out the vampires, though, because she wasn't clear what they had to do with it. 

Ororo took it all with a grain of salt. She quirked an eyebrow at her, but turned her attention back to the controls before saying, "I thought he was immune to most poisons. To most everything, in fact." 

"Yes, but I guess demons are a category unto themselves." She pulled out the fentanyl and quickly scanned the kit to see if it had anything else she didn't have in the back, but no, the fentanyl was it. 

"Will we be calling Bob then?" 

"I think we'll have to. His system can't fight it off, and I don't know what else to do." 

"You don't think it will ..." Ororo paused, as if unable to finish her own thought. Jean was obscurely glad about that. 

"No, not Logan. He's too stubborn to die." 

They exchanged weak smiles, both aware that fear was starting to erode fragile confidence. When had Logan ever been this bad? Only when Rogue had absorbed him that second time, and even then his heart beat had been stronger, his blood pressure better, even in spite of the open wounds left by Sabertooth. "I'd better get back to him," she said, standing up. "ETA for the mansion?" 

"Thirteen minutes." 

"Good. Can you tell Scott to prep the i.c.u. for me? He'll know what to do." 

"Of course," Ororo agreed, then gave her a look that was intense, almost pained. "Are you going to be okay?" 

Jean glanced at her, puzzled. "What? Why would you ask that?" 

"It's just that ... "She seemed to struggle to find the right words. " ... it's Logan." 

"Yes?" Jean wondered if she was missing subtext, or if she got the subtext loud and clear. Either way, she didn't like it. 

"I just mean that - " 

"That what?" She almost winced at how defensive she sounded. 

An exasperated look flashed through Ororo's eyes, like she was being deliberately obtuse. "Come on Jean, it's just us." 

"Yes it is. What are you saying?" 

"You and Logan have kind of a thing going." 

"Kind of a thing?" She repeated coolly, crossing her arms over her chest. "What does that mean?" 

"It's just ... we all know he talks to you. He doesn't really talk to the rest of us unless he absolutely has to." 

"He's just more comfortable with me; I don't know why." She felt extremely defensive and she loathed feeling defensive, especially when there was no reason for it. Yes, they kissed ... twice ... but no one knew about that, and no one was ever going to know. Besides, they were both Logan's fault. 

Ororo scoffed faintly. "I know why - he likes you. You two have a kind of vibe thing going on." 

"A vibe thing. What the hell does that mean?" 

"Don't take offense, it's just a chemistry thing. Some people just click, you know? And don't worry, Scott doesn't know. Men aren't good with the vibe catching." 

For a moment Jean just stood staring at her, hands on her hips, and wondered if she should be angry or not. "Are you implying something?" 

"No, of course not," she said, perhaps a little too quickly. "I know you and Scott are ... you and Scott." She seemed to be aware she was on the verge of babbling, and tried another tack. "I think I'm a little jealous. I've never met a man I had instant chemistry with. It must be nice." 

"It must be," she replied flatly, and went into the back, determined to forget this conversation and check on Logan. 

Storm was implying something, wasn't she? It was bad enough she suspected something was going on ... but nothing was going on, so she had no reason to be nervous about it. Yes, Logan seemed to be a little sweet on her, but hell, he was a bit of a horndog, wasn't he? She doubted he'd turn away the attention of any woman. Take Helga for example. 

Okay, she was probably a bad example. Probably half the continent had taken her - she didn't seem like either the moral or picky type. 

Jean was so caught up in her train of thought that she had knelt down on the floor beside him before she noticed there had been a change in Logan's vital signs. 

His heartbeat was even more erratic now, thready, pounding out an irregular rhythm indicative of distress. "Oh god," she muttered, dropping the fentanyl and grabbing up the oxygen canister. She slipped the mask over his nose and mouth and opened the valve, hoping paradoxically that this would solve the problem and that this wasn't the problem. If it was the problem - lack of oxygenation in the bloodstream or simple ( if there was such a thing ) breathing difficulties - then this was the best stop gap measure until she could figure out the root cause. But either of those things indicated a severe problem, beyond blood loss. 

She quickly checked his other vitals, and hoped this wasn't the onset of shock induced organ failure. 

"Don't give up on me, Logan,"  she said, touching his still, cold face. But she knew, without bothering to attempt a telepathic scan, that he could no longer hear her. 

16 

    Scott wondered if Logan was always trying to fuck things up on purpose. He could be such a drama queen. 

The search for unusual seismic activity in the New York area over the last two weeks had yielded only one hit,besides what happened tonight: an unexplained and "bizarrely localized" tremor on a single block just outside of Albany. It lasted only twelve seconds, but collapsed a "shipping warehouse" and did almost a million dollars' worth of damage. That had to be the work of their girl - it made him wonder what that "shipping warehouse" really was. 

Xavier gave him the okay to check it out as soon as he had the time, although he warned him the Organization had probably cleared out every hint that they had ever been there. Scott knew that, but he didn't care; if they had been there, he'd know. He'd feel those evil bastards no matter what. 

But now, to make him delay the search even more, Logan was coming in, injured or something. The Professor was concerned long before Storm radioed in that Jean needed him to set up the i.c.u. for her, and he was glad they didn't have video phones so she couldn't see him roll his eyes. The day Logan actually needed serious medical attention was ... well, the day he was looking forward to, which was exactly why he was sure it hadn't come today. His luck didn't run that good. 

He was slamming around instrument trays and muttering curses under his breath when the door slid open, and Jean entered, telekinetically pushing a gurney with Logan laid out on it ahead of her. "Scott, call Bob for me, now." She let the gurney settle in its slot across the room as she started searching the appropriate cabinet for some kind of i.v. bag. 

"What?" As if Logan wasn't bad enough, now she wanted him to talk to that Australian loony. 

For his part, Logan looked like shit. Jean had put an oxygen mask on him and a portable i.v. bag on the gurney, resting above his head. His shirt was torn open - when wasn't it torn open - and his right arm was covered with blood, and ... "What the hell is that?" Scott exclaimed, gaping at his arm. 

Beneath the dried blood, several veins in Logan's right forearm were black. They looked like long, thick worms under his skin, cables barely threaded beneath the flesh and about to burst at the seams. 

"A demon called a Rhedoc poisoned him, and now he's dying and I don't know what to do." She told him, desperation evident in her voice as she swapped Logan's tiny i.v. bag for a larger one. She sounded so frustrated he didn't know if she was going to burst into tears or molecularly destabilize the wall - it could have gone either way. "Please, do this for me." 

"Of course," he agreed, instantly heading out the door. Yes, he actually detested Bob more than Logan ( a close thing - and there was no fucking way he was a god. That had to be a sick joke on his part. But if by some freak cosmic incident it was somehow true, he was becoming an atheist ), but did he really want Logan to die? 

Okay, yes. Maybe sometimes. 

No, no - he just wanted him to go away, or learn to be like a civilized person, or become a crazed loner on his own time and stay out of their hair, and stop bringing his goofy friends around. And stay the absolute hell away from Jean. 

It was stupid, of course. It made him seem insecure and jealous, and he was neither. He loved Jeannie, and he trusted her ... but why did she worry so much about Logan? And he absolutely hated the way that Logan looked at her sometimes, like she was a piece of meat. 

( And sometimes she looked at him in exactly the same way... ) 

Scott had no great desire to see anyone dead. No one, not even Logan. But he wasn't going to call Bob for Logan; truth be told, he wasn't really doing it for Jean either, although he tried to tell himself that. 

No, he was doing it for himself. He had to get out of that room before Jean caught even a smidgen of his emotional state. If Logan died, and for even a millisecond he took some sick, bleak pleasure or relief in it, Jeannie would never forgive him - he knew that, and it made him resent Logan even more. 

So he was going to call Bob, and transfer that frustration somewhere safer; somewhere where she wouldn't blame him. 

And hope that Logan didn't become greater in death than in life to the woman who was slowly slipping away from him. 

17 

    "You're insane," Sy said. 

Bob wondered how he was supposed to take that. Being called insane by Osiris wasn't just a case of the pot calling the kettle black - oh no, the hypocrisy went far, far deeper than that. It was like a koala calling you a furry, lazy, grey marsupial who did nothing but get stoned on eucalyptus leaves all goddamn day. It was hypocrisy at its highest level; cranked all the way to eleven, totally devoid of self-awareness. "Thank you," Bob said, deciding it was a compliment. 

Sy's hawk eyes burned into him, as he obviously didn't get the joke at all. Poor man. No wonder he was crazy - he had no sense of humor at all. 

"Your plan seems foolish," Eris claimed, following up Sy's statement. 

"That is why they will never see it coming," Fudo pointed out. 

Bob nodded. "Nobody ever sees me coming. That's why I have so many ex-wives." 

No one got the joke, but he didn't expect them to - too Human plane, that joke. He should have went with the "nobody expects the Spanish inquisition" joke. Didn't Eris have something to do with that? 

"Are you even taking this seriously?" Eris continued. 

"Of course I am! What a thing to say." He scowled at her, crossing his arms over his chest and wondering when they were going to let him get on with it. They were so hot and heavy for this, and yet they seemed to be stalling. "If you think I'm gonna fail you or fuck ya over, why bring me in?" 

"We don't think that," Fudo said. 

"You're a fucking joke," Sy sneered. 

Ah, good old Sy. Bob couldn't help but laugh. 

This, of course, did not sit well with the humorless Osiris. "What the hell's so funny?" 

"You're too small, furry, and squeaky, says the mouse." Sy wouldn't understand that anymore than he had ever understood anything that Bob had ever said. No irony, no self-awareness, no sense of humor ... and they wondered why he preferred the company of "lower gods". At least they could let loose once in a while. 

Bob was tired of standing, so he visualized a nice black marble chair to match the landscape and sat the hell down, and knew what Eris was going to tell him before she actually said it. "If you didn't fully inhabit a corporeal frame, you wouldn't feel any need to quench its desires," she said, pointing out not only the patently obvious, but also the number one problem between him and these real higher realmers. 

"But the fun's where the desires are," he replied, knowing it was wasted on them. To them corporeal frames were a gross sentence, a necessity on the lower planes but a penance nonetheless - something to be borne, like a stigma or a smelly old costume, until it could be properly shed. They didn't know the fun you could have with a body - they didn't know good food or a really wicked beer or Helga with a pair of handcuffs and a can of chocolate whipped cream. They had no idea what they were missing out on, and he felt sorry for them. Of course the big irony here was they felt sorry for him,not knowing the full rapture beyond the physical plane. 

But that was the funny thing - he knew both. And he had made his choice. And that was the thing they could never - would never - understand. 

"You are a low being," Sy snapped, sneering in disgust. 

Bob just grinned at him. "Ooh, I like it when you talk dirty to me." 

"You believe this is the best plan?" Fudo quickly interjected. 

Bob wasn't sure if Fu meant taunting Sy or referring to his plan to catch up the big bad guys. He just assumed Fu meant the latter. "I think so. They'll never predict it, will they?" 

"No one can predict you," Eris said, in a tone of voice that was at once admiring and disgusted. 

"That's why I'm here - got it. So are you gonna let me shake my moneymaker my way or what?" 

"What language are you speaking?" Sy asked, annoyed. He wished Osiris knew how easy - and positively fun - it was to annoy him. 

"It's a tongue of the low people called Uradik. You're not familiar with it? I'm surprised." 

Eris actually got that joke, as she discreetly looked away to hide a ghost of a smile. Fudo probably got it, but remained as serene as always. Sy just looked puzzled, and - again - annoyed. "Why would I know a language of the low people?" He demanded. 

Bob knew that had been coming but still laughed anyways. Man, sometimes you just couldn't make this stuff up. Osiris was the best straight man ever. 

"Are you prepared, Bob?" Fudo asked, sounding concerned. 

"I was born ready," he assured her/him. 

"You were not born," Sy corrected him, glaring at him like he was an idiot. 

"Well, I guess that depends on your interpretation of the word." 

"Nothing is born," Fudo said, adopting a philosophical tone. "All is simply recycled." 

Bob nodded sagely. "Fu, you oughta work for Greenpeace." 

Yet another joke no one understood. 

18 

    "What do you mean he's missing?" Scott repeated in disbelief. This had to be one of her bad jokes. 

Helga sighed impatiently, like he was being the unreasonable one. "What don't you understand about the word missing? He's gone; disappeared; gone poof. And I don't mean poof in the British sense." 

"When did this happen?" 

"If I knew that, Boy Scout ... look, Bob warned me this might happen. Ever since he made Loki go bye bye, he figured some people might be in a tizzy. But he told me it was nothing he couldn't handle." 

Scott rubbed his eyes, and resolved not to ask about Loki or whatever the hell she was going on about. "When is he due back?" 

"How the hell should I know? I asked Ammy to look into it, but right now she ain't having much success." She paused, then asked, "What's your guys's problem now?" 

He sighed, and felt suddenly very self-conscious. "Jean wanted me to call. Logan got attacked by a Rhedoc and seems to be - " 

"Whoa, a Rhedoc?" She interrupted. "Is he okay?" 

"He's dying." 

"Shit," she cursed, almost under her breath. "Why the fuck was he in Mexico?" 

That threw him for a loop. "Mexico?" 

"Or wherever south of the border, Boy Scout." 

"Stop calling me Boy Scout. And from what I understand he was attacked in Michigan." 

"Bullshit! They only like hot, dark places, like yeast infections. What the fuck was one doing in Michigan, Groundskeeper Willie?" 

Scott stared at the the telephone receiver for a moment - trying hard to pretend he hadn't heard that yeast infections comment -  before repeating, "Groundskeeper Willie?" 

"He's a Scot too." 

"That is the worst joke I have ever heard." 

She didn't seem to care. "Why was it there, Willie?" 

He sighed heavily, and had to tamp down the urge to bang the handset against the wall. "Fine, call me Boy Scout. And I have no fucking idea why he even fought the thing, Helga. All I know is his arm is turning black and Jean says he's dying." 

"His arm? How long ago was he attacked?" 

"I don't know. An hour maybe?" 

"And it's only his arm that's tainted? Hmm." 

"What do you mean tainted?" And he thought talking to Bob was as enjoyable as ramming your head repeatedly into a brick wall. It was nice to know Helga could be just as entertaining as sticking knitting needles in your eyes. 

"See, the thing about Rhedocs is they're aren't like a lot of demons. They're highly toxic, but with them things could go one of   
two ways - either they kill you or they transform you. But if it's been an hour, you should know one way or another by now." 

"Transform you?" 

"Well, they don't have genitalia, so they can't breed like things that do. To propagate the species, they infect others with their genetic material, but the process of cellular mutation usually kills most of the infected." 

"Are you saying this thing impregnated him?" Scott couldn't help but laugh. He knew Logan would probably sleep with anything, but come on. 

"No, asshole, I'm saying this is an infectious organism. If it can get some of its DNA under your skin - in a bite, a cut - it starts invading your cells, transforming you to it, if the toxic byproducts of the mutation don't kill you first: a much more deadly form of werewolves. Most people die long before that, so Rhedocs are pretty rare. But usually, if you're gonna survive to transform, by an hour you should be half way over - it happens pretty fast. Think of them as a sort bacteriophage in bipedal form, with people as the bacteria." 

Scott managed to stop laughing, and consider what she said. That wasn't a good thing, and Logan turning into an infectious demon was obviously bad news. But he hadn't changed yet. "Could it be taking longer because he's a mutant?" 

There was a pause as she considered that. "No, that doesn't make sense. The only thing I can think is that Logan's immune system has fought the stuff to a standstill." 

"But he's dying." 

"I know, it's weird." She paused again. "Is he injured in some other way?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"Does he have other injuries? Maybe he's dyin' 'cause he's maxed out. His system can't fight anymore because it's all fucked out, but because this is Logan we're talking about, it's still fighting anyways." 

"To the point where it will kill him?" Although that sounded perfectly illogical, it still had a ring of plausibility to it. That sounded just self-destructive enough to fit Logan to a T. 

"Yeah. An immune response taken to its most lethal extreme. You know if it's gonna happen, it's gonna be Logan's system responsible for it, 'cause he's just that sort of guy. Beauty's skin deep, but stubborn goes to the bone." 

Scott realized that was probably it, and how sad was it that it was Helga who figured it out? Logan's system was fighting this stuff so hard - and on top of whatever other injuries he had - that it was literally killing him. Jean didn't know what to do to save him because, ironically, he was inadvertently killing himself. 

After a moment, Helga said, "I'll get Amaranth on it, see if she can whip up a spell to remove Rhedoc traces or whatever, but it may take a while, 'cause I'm pretty sure there's nothing on the books. How long do you think he has?" 

"I don't know. He seems pretty bad right now, though." 

"Damn it." He heard her sigh impatiently, then ask accusingly, "How come all you men act up at once?" 

"Hormones?" He replied flippantly. But he wondered what he could tell Jean, and how she would take the news. 

19 

    She sat watching the monitor readouts as they lazily dropped one digit after another as the minutes passed by, and wondered if lack of sleep was starting to get to her, or if maybe she was just insane. Would it matter either way? 

After Scott told her what Helga had said, it was like the bottom had dropped out of the world for a moment. What bitter irony - could Logan's immune system be killing him? Maybe he didn't want to die right now, but his healing factor had apparently missed the bulletin. 

It did make sense though. And considering all the other injuries she had catalogued, nonetheless a skirmish with vampires, he had so much to heal he no longer had the energy to sustain it all. 

And it was the word energy that gave her the idea. 

Scott was still talking to her when it occurred to her, and she did something that she had rarely ever done to anyone: she sent him the slightest telepathic suggestion that he could no longer keep his eyes open. 

Jean knew he felt bad, and wanted to stay with her, but at the moment she needed peace and quiet to think. She was able to convince the yawning Scott she'd be okay if he went and got a couple hours rest. He said he'd be back in an hour, but she knew - even aside from her subliminal suggestion - he was far more tired than that. She was too, to be brutally honest, but how could she sleep while Logan slowly died? 

But if it was his healing factor, unable to rein itself in, killing him, then she had to find a way to stop it - which seemed out of the question: what if that Rhedoc stuff took over? - or a way to give it ( or him ) so much energy it could get him over the top, heal him and not at the expense of his life? But how could she do that, exactly? 

What she needed was a reverse Rogue - someone who could transfer power to him rather than take it out of him. But they had no one like that here, and save for Bob - who was apparently out of the question right now - she knew of no one who could do such a thing. 

She was sitting beside his bed, holding his cold hand in hers, and thinking of telepathically contacting him ( if possible ) to let him know what was happening to him, when she suddenly realized she had been overlooking the obvious. 

Telekinesis was what? Exerting energy over matter from a distance. Logan could contain vast amounts of energy with no apparently ill effects ( they knew this courtesy of the over - energized Bob ), so, if she could somehow transfer energy to him, to his immune system/healing factor, Logan could save himself. But the question of how was a stumbling block - the idea was purely theoretical, so how could she accomplish that? Energy could not be created - it could be transformed ( transferred ) or otherwise altered, but not destroyed either. She would have to take it from something else, and there was but a single answer to that - herself. She'd have to give energy from herself to him. Which sounded easy, but again, there was no medical manual that explained that procedure. 

She found herself thinking about blood transfusions, as that was her best model: a material transfer from one to another. To carry that further, it would mean her immune system - or mutation - hooked up to his, which was impossible. But what she could do was go into his mind, and hopefully figure it out, and not kill him or herself in the process. 

It was experimental and risky, and even the Professor had warned her - under different circumstances - about ever venturing into a mind as fractured and dangerous as Logan's. But the alternative was to sit here and do nothing and watch him die, and that was unacceptable. Or wait for Helga and/or Bob to come through, but that was equally unacceptable. She was just going to have to do this herself, and hope she knew what the hell she was doing. 

Oh, since when did that ever stop her before? 


	7. Part 7

Jean let go of his icy cold hand, and ignored the nervous flutter in her stomach as she moved her hands to his head, and focused. She had never entered the mind of a comatose man before, and had no idea what - if anything - to expect. 

At first, there was nothing - she was in a black and frigid space, one that made her shiver. Her first thought was "He's still cold", but slowly she began to realize that this place, while dark, was not empty. Very slowly, as her eyes adjusted, she began to see that she was inside ... something. Something industrial and old, with metal walls colored  
with rust and a monotonous drip drip drip of falling water somewhere far away, and yet not far enough to escape the slow insanity of the noise. 

For some reason she instantly thought about "Das Boot" and wondered if she was inside a dying submarine, a corroding hulk at the bottom of an ocean, but it was far too big and the the halls took too many turns. No, this was a warehouse that happened to look as if it had been retrofitted to become a torture chamber, or maybe a depressing space base for a movie set. 

Passing by a room with an open door, she saw the silhouette of a man in sickly ichor green light, and knew simply from the posture and the shoulders that it was Logan. She paused, and asked, "What are you doing here?" She could see her breath erupt before her in white clouds - it wasn't only that his body was cold; this place was cold. This place was freezing, devoid of all forms of warmth; not just in temperature, but in color and sound and light as well. It was a structure that wanted you to know you were going to die, and not pleasantly - this place was a horror show. She didn't want to be here, and she had no idea why Logan would be here either. 

"I'm always here," he replied, without turning around. "It's like a bad dream. I'm always leaving, but I never quite make it out the door." 

She stepped into the room, and slowly came up beside him, afraid he might react in paranoia due to the atmosphere of this place, but it was so clear his shoulders were slumped in defeat she almost didn't want to find out what he was looking down at. 

But she had to, even though she was afraid she could guess. He was staring down into a large glass tank, about the rough size and shape of a coffin, but deeper. It was filled to the brim with ... something; a chemical vat full of bright green liquid that smelled strangely of hot metal, burned flesh, blood, and disinfectant, but had an opaque layer of ice floating on the top like pond scum. She had an impression of skin somewhere beneath ice and green tinted water, and realized there was a body in the tank. Tubes snaked under the ice, and it was possible one was an oxygen tube - someone was in there, someone possibly still alive in this vat of chemical soup and ice ... 

Logan. Oh good lord, Logan was in there. 

Her first instinct was to reach in and pull him up - could he drown in there? Could the chemicals be corrosive? Were they trying to trigger hypothermia? - but of course he was actually standing right beside her. This was simply a memory, a snapshot of agony frozen in time. 

And he was always here - he was absolutely right. Briefly, she recalled that song that started, "In my dreams I'm dying all the time," and wondered if Logan had ever heard it, or was aware of the irony. "You don't need to be here now," she told him, and placed a hand on his back. 

Wrong move - he was in no mood to be touched. He stiffened and instantly shrugged her hand off, moving away a couple steps. "I can't just leave, can I?" He snapped bitterly. 

"Yes you can. You can alter this landscape. It's your mind, after all." Did he not know that? 

He gave her a startled look, and she realized he didn't. He must have known he was loose in these memories, but perhaps he just thought he was sleeping, and when he started screaming, he would wake up. But of course that wasn't going to happen, not this time - but he didn't know that. He must not have remembered what happened to him before he ended up in this familiar dreamscape. "You're really here, aren't you?" 

She wondered if she had ever showed up in his dreams before, then decided she really didn't want to know. After all, would she want to tell him how he'd shown up in her dreams? There were just some things it was best to keep to yourself. "Yes. You were seriously injured, Logan - do you remember?" 

He stared at her a moment, frowning in thought, and she watched his brow crease in consternation as some of it must have come back to him. In the green light, his eyes looked sunken, hollow, as if he was ghost who was slowly fading into his bodiless state. "Shit. That Rhedoc thing?" 

"I'm afraid so. We found out something about it, but I'd rather tell you someplace nicer." 

He rubbed his eyes, and said, "Yeah, whatever. Wherever you want to go." 

"It's your mind, Logan. You change it." It's not that she couldn't - she felt it was important he did it. 

He gave her a truculent look, like he knew this was some therapist exercise and wanted nothing to do with it, but finally he relented with a sigh. "Fine. But I have no fucking idea where we'll end up." 

"Anywhere's better than here." 

Even he couldn't argue with that. He turned towards the open door and walked towards it, arms tensed at his sides like he was expecting trouble, and she followed, close but not so close that she might accidentally touch him if he stopped short. She couldn't blame him for being in "hands off" mode, not after a visit to the torture chamber of his past. It was probably a surprise he could ever bear to be touched. 

She didn't know what to expect, so she briefly closed her eyes as she crossed the threshold, and hoped it was somewhere not only nicer, but less associated with the smell of death, and maybe - if it wasn't too much to ask - warm. She opened her eyes, and figured two out of three wasn't bad. 

They were now on the wooden porch of a slightly ramshackle cabin so deep in a dense forest it was actually difficult to see the sky through the towering pines. It was daylight, though, although a cold, dry day, the kind where breathing could actually hurt your throat. Logan was holding on to the edge of the railing like he was on a storm tossed ship, and it creaked in his grip like it would splinter any second. The wood wasn't rotted, just old and weathered, and the porch was starting to sag ever so slightly under the dual assault of time and gravity. There was a clearing surrounding the cabin like a moat, but it was just pebbles and scree that gave way to dark dirt and the lush undergrowth of a true forest within a few feet. 

The roof came down low, so low she could reach up and touch it, but for its compact size and obvious age, it was reasonably well made and holding up okay. "This is nice," she said, watching her breath puff out in fluffy white clouds again. "Where are we?" 

It took him a moment to answer her. he stared out into the woods as if rapt, or trying to find something hiding in the clinging shadows at the base of the trees. "Somewhere in Alberta, I think. I think I used to live here." 

"Really?" It did seem like Logan, now that she looked at it. It was unassuming, more utilitarian than fancy, and desperately hiding from the outside world. "But you're not sure? Do you have no clear memories of it?" 

"I don't know what memories I have that I can trust anymore," he replied, still staring out into the forest. "My head's been fucked with so much I'm afraid to trust anything I can't partially verify in some other way. I know something like this place existed - I found burnt remains - but that's all I know." 

She saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes peering at them accusatorially from beneath the shadow of a Ponderosa pine, and even though she knew it was unlikely to hurt them, she still felt a slight jolt of fear until she realized how small the beast was. 

He must have known where she was looking, because he said dismissively, "That's just Cat. Ignore it." 

"You had a cat?" It was kind of sweet to think he once had a pet. 

He shook his head. "It didn't have anywhere better to go either, so it just hung around. It wasn't mine; it was feral." 

She still smiled to herself. Maybe it was wild, but the fact that he even bothered to give it the sarcastic, half assed name Cat indicated that he at least considered it a fixture if not precisely a pet. She wondered if he ever thought to miss it. 

"So why are you here, Jean?" He asked, and suddenly he had a smoldering cigar clenched between the fingers of his right hand. Well, this was a mindscape; much like being with Bob, almost anything could happen. "What's going on?" 

There was no point in sugar coating it - Logan just liked his realities straight, no matter how brutal. So she told him their working theory on how his own immune reaction to the Rhedoc was killing him, and he grunted in dark humor, grasping the porch so hard it groaned like it was actually voicing a protest. "So I really am killing myself? Now that's quality irony. So why are you here, darlin'? I mean, thanks for letting me know, but I coulda died without knowin' that." 

"You're not going to die," she insisted. "I think I can save you." 

He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. "Do you wanna?" 

She scowled at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a blur of orange fur as Cat ran from the trees to a space beneath the porch. "Don't even joke. But I'm going to need your cooperation, Logan." 

For a moment he studied her face, and she felt self-conscious, wondering what he was looking for. But then he looked away, out into the dark woods, and took a leisurely puff on his cigar before he asked, "Why?" He almost sounded defeated. 

Had he changed his mind, or had what he told her on the plane simply a momentary bit of fear? Did he really want to die? "Because I've never done this before, and it's risky." 

"How risky?" 

"I don't know. As I said, I've never done this before." 

He exhaled a cloud of smoke that looked like breath, and tossed the stub of his cigar out into the gravel; it didn't take long for the smoldering ember to fail in the icy mountain air. "Is the risk to you or to me?" He asked, turning to face her. 

Jean knew if she said there was any risk to her, he would walk away. She could probably do it without his cooperation, but it would be much easier on both of them if he played along. So she did something she had never done to a patient before - she lied her fucking head off, and hoped he bought it. "It would be easy if it was to me, but it's not. In your weakened state - coupled with the fact that I am simply winging it -I could inadvertently kill you myself." 

"And that's all?" 

"That's all." 

He studied her face, scouring it for any trace of duplicity, but she knew, on a psychic plane, she could lie better than any politician. Finally he nodded assent, and nervously hid his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "What is it you're plannin' to do?" 

"I'm going to try and give your immune system - your healing factor - a telekinetic jump start. Basically send it into overdrive, but with the energy to do that without siphoning it off from other areas, so you can actually survive the process." 

He pondered that for a moment, a small frown line appearing between his lowered brows. "How are you gonna do that?" 

Lovely, the tough question. "I'll need access to your mind. But I don't mean your memories - I don't want to invade your privacy." 

He smirked bitterly. "You mean you don't want to see any of my memories. Don't worry, I don't blame you. I usually don't want to see them either." 

"I don't need to see them," she assured him, but of course he was right. His memories were generally too horrific for her to stand for long - she didn't know how he could stand it without going crazy; screaming seemed like the least he could possibly do under the circumstances, and extremely reasonable. "But I have to admit I'll need you to open your mind to me." 

"What does that mean?" 

"It just means that you have to relax your mental defenses, that's all." 

"I have some?" 

"Believe it or not, yes." 

He frowned down at the wooden floorboards of the porch, most of which were covered with a fine layer of dust but appeared to be in excellent shape otherwise, fitted so close together in perfect symmetry that a pine needle couldn't slip through the cracks. "If I don't know how to do it - " 

"You do; it's just like meditation. You'll just have to trust me. Do you trust me, Logan?" It was a loaded question and they both knew it. How could he trust anyone when he'd been burned so badly so many times? Even though it was her, and he logically knew he could trust her now, something in him recoiled automatically at the thought. It was nothing personal; it was pure instinct. 

Maybe that's why he took pity on Cat. It probably couldn't trust Humans either. 

The fact that she knew she was lying to him, and yet asking him to trust her in spite of it. The hypocrisy was awful, but she was doing this to help him - she hoped later on he would understand that. And if not ... well, at least she wouldn't have to worry about him and Scott getting in a fight over her, because he'd hate her. 

He looked up and met her gaze, and for a long moment his suddenly weary green eyes stared into hers. She knew he wasn't seeing anything in her eyes but the concern he expected, but she couldn't help but feel bad, not only for lying, but because he looked so tired. She was sure physical exhaustion was only part of it. 

Finally he relented with a nod, shoulders slumping in surrender. "Yeah Jeannie, I trust you. So what do you need me to do?" 

And Scott said he couldn't take orders. 

20 

    If you believed the myth among the people of Fiji, no one living had ever walked the Kauvadra Hills. 

This was the fog enshrouded land of the dead, a sort of Pacific Islander version of Saint Peter's waiting room, where Degei the serpent god would question you and figure out if you belonged in Murimuria ( basically purgatory ) or Burotu, which was basically heaven times ten. 

Of course, none of this was technically true, but it made a ripping story. A hell of a lot more fun than that pearly gates crap. 

The hills were shrouded in mist, though - that much was true. The fog was a semi-translucent scrim of opalescent vapor that hovered four feet off the ground like a reluctant ghost, reducing visibility to about a foot in front of your face. A shame, as the deeply blue trees and golden palms were gorgeously alien against the backdrop of crimson and ochre foliage and the pale pink blush of the sky. 

The ground beneath his turned black and seemed to writhe, but he knew it was not the earth moving beneath his feet, but snakes. Dozens upon dozens of snakes in all lengths and colors, surging around him and ahead of him, like it was a raging river and he was nothing but a raft gliding on its surface. If he could see the hills around them, he would have been able to see they were moving, shimmering with the movements of a billion scales glinting in the light of the pale red sun. 

The fog started to swirl and clear, and about five feet ahead of him, the snakes began to gather in a pile that quickly became a humanoid shape, a sturdy, well built man whose scaled skin alternated with red, black, yellow, and orange rings, like that of a colorful and exotic serpent. 

The head and the eyes formed last, and the eyes were large, almost the size of his fists, and slit pupiled, a wondrous silver color that looked like the light of a clear, full moon. "Bob - long time no see," Degei said, as the small snakes continued flowing down his newly solidified arms, coiling into hands and fingers as he watched. 

"Hey Deg, how's it goin'?" 

"Well. But you're not here about me." 

"True enough. Sorry about that mate, but you know how it is." 

"I do. Is this about Fenrir?" 

"Good guess." 

"Come, we'll discuss it over tea," Degei said, turning and walking back to a stone edifice that appeared behind him as the fog cleared. Snakes continued to stream after and before him on the ground, a living carpet of worshipers, followers who made up the body of their own god. 

The house hewn from rock looked somewhat like a pagoda, with a peaked roof and a square body, and inside it was completely unadorned, and even the small table and two chairs extruded from the floor were made of solid granite. The teapot, though, was highly polished gold, as were the cups-very classy. 

He took a seat, ignoring all the snakes slithering around him, in and out through the glassless window like this was the truck stop equivalent for snakes, and let Degei start pouring the two of them cups of tea before he said, "Really this is about Loki, or more appropriately, his friends." 

"Loki doesn't have any friends." 

"I know, which is what puzzles me. I mean, the more I thought about it, the more I realized he must have had helped springing Fenrir from his dimensional prison." 

"Indeed. Loki has neither the power or intelligence to pull off such a thing alone." He handed him a steaming cup of amber liquid, that smelled of hibiscus, cardamom, anise, and honey. 

Bob gave him a nod of thanks, and wrapped his hands around the gilded cup for warmth. "So what's going on, Deg? Who else has it in for me?" 

Degei considered his words carefully, stirring his tea with a cinnamon stick. Deg was very much the Sweden of the higher realms - he didn't take sides in any disagreement, but he saw all, heard all, knew all; he had his agents - snakes, and their eyes, ears, and other assorted sensory organs - in almost every dimension. He was a good guy to know if you wanted information on anything anywhere. "In a sense, Bob, they all have it out for you; they're scared by you. The Powers That Be enjoy order, and you are the antithesis of that." 

"Somebody's gotta be." 

Degei nodded, conceding that point. "Beings fear what they can't control, no matter the skin they're in." 

"A sad fact of life." 

"Yes." 

Bob took a sip of his tea. It was incredible, so odd and earthy and flavorful that there was no way that it could have come from an Earth plane. "You make some kick ass tea, Deggy." 

Degei accepted the compliment with a dip of his head. "There are ... things happening on the Higher Realms that you are unaware of, Bob." 

"Oh really?" He hated to act dumb and play Degei like this, but it was part of the game. 

"Some of the Highers are tired of living among these realms, and wish to expand their influence." 

"You mean they need more beings to manipulate and push around." 

"As you will." 

A King cobra slithered across the table on its way out the window, as a coral snake, adorned with rings much like Deggy's skin, coiled around the base of the teapot, basking in the warmth. "And you think this relates to Fenrir's escape?" 

"The realms are starting to destabilize." 

"The fighting's been that bad?" 

"Ares thinks if he lets chaos loose, others will join out of necessity." 

"The scare the shit out of them school of blackmail. Boy, Ares is as subtle as a hand grenade up the ass, isn't he?" 

"He was never known for his social graces," Deg admitted, completely deadpan, as he enjoyed a sip of tea. 

"Or hygiene. He's gotta have more help - if the big guns wanted to shut Ares down, they could." 

"Kumiho is said to be helping behind the scenes, as is Ra and Cerberus." 

"Kumiho?" Oh, there was a bad news name. The name, on the Earth plane, indicated a form of vampire/succubus hybrid native to the Koreas - a trickster like the Japanese kitsune, only far more dangerous, as they survived on the life force of its chosen victims as opposed to the far more pedestrian blood of vampires and the ... well, kitsunes weren't after anything but shits and giggles. But there was a Higher Realmer named Kumiho - the demons were named after her as a sort of backhanded dis - a trickster goddess far more crafty and dangerous than Loki could ever be, even on his best day. As far as Cerberus, he was kind of a one trick pony, nasty as hell (no pun intended), but not hard to deal with. "Shit. Who else is on the team? Eris?" 

"Strangely enough, no. There is ... rumors that the whole thing started as a rift between them." 

Eris was Ares's sister, and they were always close, as they were equally arrogant and nasty. But he knew over the past century they had started drifting away from each other, mainly because they could never convince the other they were better. "A family feud that threatens to split the heavens? Man, that's fucking poetic." 

Degei actually snorted a laugh, almost sending tea shooting out his black and red scaled nose. The other cool thing about Deg was he had an actual sense of humor, possibly because so much of his body ( snakes ) was on the Human plane. As soon as he recovered, he said, "I missed you, Bob. You don't have a stick up your ass like the rest of them." 

"Well, I'm not anally fixated, thank you very much." After a pause and another drink of tea, asked, "So do you know who else is linin' up for the dark side?" 

It was then he felt his skin crawl, and the snakes coiling around his ankles suddenly hissed en masse - a sound almost akin to a distant waterfall, water spilling over slick stone - and withdrew to the safety of the space behind Degei as the air split behind Bob's chair. 

This was no surprise; this was why he was here. Although the snakes were the body and mind of Degei, he was not the only one who could tap into them. 

Phobos, Ares's son and the personification of fear, stepped out of the reality tear, and slapped a vise like hand on Bob's shoulder. 

"How dare you violate the sanctity of my sanctuary!" Degei roared, jumping to his feet. Snakes coiled up him, spiraled up, making him taller and wider, a man mountain in the process of construction. 

But it was too little too late, as Phobos had no desire to mix it up with Degei and his billions upon trillions of followers - even Fear itself had fears. "Bite me," Phobos snapped, and disappeared, pulling Bob along with him. 

21 

    Logan wondered what Jean was hiding. 

It was possible he was being paranoid, or if she was hiding something, it was nothing more important than being in his mind scared the shit out of her. He couldn't blame her for that if it was true. 

To make this easier on her ( well, supposedly them, but he didn't really care where he was ), they were no longer at his supposed former home in Alberta, but back in the medical lab of Xavier's, where Jean probably felt the safest. That was really funny considering labs almost always made him feel like jumping out of his skin. 

But not this one; bright white surfaces and matte chrome, spotlessly clean, well lit, and sterile, it looked nothing like the Giger meets Escher-esque labs of his memories, and it smelled too strongly of Jean to make him nervous. As he looked around and sat on the edge of one of the examination tables, he said, "I'm here in real life, ain't I?" 

She stood in front of him, and after a guilty look quickly flashed across her face. she nodded. "I'm afraid so." 

"How am I doin'? Or is that a silly question?" 

She gave him the slightest smile, which was undeniably charming. "It's a silly question." 

"I'm known for those." 

"Hush." She put her hands on his shoulders and stared straight into his eyes. He noticed up close that her hazel eyes had flecks of gold in them; they were really quite lovely. "Now, I don't know what this is going to be like. It may seem a little ... overwhelming at first." 

"I can handle it." He quirked up a corner of his mouth, not quite a smile but as much as he could muster right now. "I've had worse." 

"You don't need to point that out, you know." 

"I know, but I like to. Makes me feel macho." 

She rolled her eyes, and unsuccessfully stifled a small laugh. "You're incorrigible." 

"So I've been told." 

She fixed him with a stern look, and he knew joking time was over - she wanted to do this before she completely lost her nerve. Strangely, maybe he was a little nervous about this. 

She moved her hands up to the side of his head, and then closed her eyes. "I need you to clear your mind and relax." 

He was tempted to say "All you women say that," but somehow he knew that wouldn't go down well, so he kept his mouth shut. 

Logan closed his own eyes as Jean rested her forehead against his, and he had to tell himself not to tense as he waited for something to happen. 

But nothing did, and just when he started to wonder if Jean had chickened out, it was like a lightning bolt hit his brain stem. 

It wasn't painful - not really, not at first - it was, just as she warned, overwhelming. Energy burned through him, expanding like heat inside inside his brain, rode the highways of his nerves until his body was filled with it. It felt like he was being sunburned from the inside out. 

And then the pain started. 

It felt like his right arm had burst into flames, followed shortly afterwards by his lungs inside his chest cavity, and a few other assorted organs lower down in the gut. But he knew even as the pain seared through him that it was normal - the healing process kicked into overdrive, right? It always burned, so flash flooded like this, it would hurt even more. 

But he was aware of a sense of bilocation - not being disconnected from himself, but connected to someone else. He understood far too late: Jean. 

She screamed horribly, obviously in terrible pain, but she didn't let go; her fingers tangled in his hair to keep from breaking the connection even as her own consciousness wavered under the assault. And the weird thing was he could feel it - her - slipping away, like a phantom twin. 

Now he knew what she had been hiding from him. 

"No!" He shouted, shoving her away to break the connection. But it was too late, and as she hit the exam table across from him back first, he knew she was already gone. 

He slid off the table and landed on the floor in a crouch, so he could catch her before she hit the ground. He still felt like he was burning, but it had kicked down to a low smolder, and he knew he'd be fine, if he didn't qualify as fine already. 

But Jean was not. She was unconscious at least, and seemed strangely light in his arms, but he didn't know if that meant he was fading out of here or she was. He really couldn't tell, and didn't know if it made any difference at all. If she had asked - if it had occurred to him that she might feel it too - he could have warned her how much it hurt to heal like he did. He was used to it, it was just the pain of living as he did, a handy autonomic function he rarely thought about, except in the capacity of "I wonder if my healing factor can bring me back from this". 

He brushed the hair from her eyes and looked down at her inordinately pale face, and hoped she'd open her eyes again. "Jean? Damn you, why didn't you tell me?" 

Yet he knew the answer to that, didn't he? He'd have refused to play along - they both knew it. Goddamn telepaths. "Damn you," he muttered, bringing his forehead down to hers, and hoping against hope that he could reverse this somehow. 

But it didn't work like that, did it? 

22 

    "This is nice. Were there no train tracks to tie me down to?" Bob wondered. 

"Shut the hell up," Phobos snarled, as he paced restlessly in front of what looked like a novelty lamp. It was a globe sized orb glowing with internal white light hovering over what could very well have been a wrought iron table. It lit the entire cavern, but not so there weren't black shadows clinging like ink to the sides and the ceiling, cloaking its actual dimensions. Not that dimensions could actually be ascertained - Phobos was nothing if not entertainingly obtuse. 

"You know, for super secret hideouts, you could have done a lot better. This is really passe, mate." 

Phobos stopped pacing long enough to glare at him. Well, as much as possible for a man with no visible eyes. "You know what your problem is, Bob? You talk too damn much." 

Bob just grinned at him, or at least as much as he could with half his face encased in rock. Phobos had rematerialized him in the wall of his cave/grotto/shagadelic death pad, which was made of living rock. It had already completely sealed him in from the waist down, and his arms were lousy with the stuff too; basically, only the right half of his face and part of his neck was not covered with rock ... yet. But he could feel it delicately undulating its way across his skin, feeling like the feet of millipedes wearing tiny little felt slippers. It was actually relatively pleasant, until it set like concrete; then you were pretty much fucked. He could feel the sheer weight of it - like six gees of gravity - crushing his chest in slow motion. It was a good thing he didn't need to breathe. 

But all this showed was Phobos's terminal lack of imagination - he could have lived anywhere in any universe he wished, and he lived in a fucking cave! A cave where he let the living rock wall up his enemies. Neato bandito. He missed his calling as a lame ass James Bond villain. "I didn't think your dad would deign to set foot in a place like this," Bob continued, aware his every word was like a needle in Phobby's ear. Good. "He has more Donald Trump kind of tastes, doesn't he? Rather fey for a pissheaded despot ..." 

"I already told you to shut the hell up!" He snapped, stomping over towards him. Phobos generally took a form he knew would frighten the person he was dealing with the most, but since that was a difficult tone to hit among the Highers, he had a generic unsettling humanoid form them, which he was wearing now - a tall man, far too thin, with limbs that were just long enough to see deeply wrong, and a gleaming bald skull peeking through where a scalp or hair should have been. This was supplemented by having no visible eyes, just blank, smooth skin where at least some holes should have been, a mouth two times as wide as normal, no nose, and pointed ears that stuck out from the side of his scalped head like open car doors. To say he looked like a shaved, blind bat would have grossly offended bats everywhere. 

He wasn't just ugly; he was mondo ugly. Not so much hit with the ugly stick as sodomized and then beaten to death with it. 

Phobby got into his half face, and hissed, "I can slow your death down even further, Bob." 

Bob tried to raise an eyebrow, but had no idea if he succeeded. "A god, and yet you've never heard of mouthwash." 

He got the sense Phobos was glaring at him again. "Is that some attempt at low humor?" 

"It would have worked if I had a rimshot." 

Phobos grunted in disgust, not understanding that one either, and stomped away, back towards the table. The light inside the globe - bluish white but dotted with flecks like silver - swirled and writhed, as if following its own laws of Brownian motion, but Bob knew that wasn't the case. No, he was probably looking at one of the reasons Eris, Sy, Fudo, and the others had a hard time keeping track of Ares and his activities. "That's Shen Yi you have imprisoned in there, isn't it?" 

Phobos ignored him, but Bob heard a distant affirmative in his mind. He thought he had recognized the shape of Shen Yi's physical form in the wall across the way, a figure forever encased in solid rock. So the bastard had killed him physically, but trapped the rest of him in that sphere ... and Shen Yi, known to the ancient Chinese as a sun god, had the kind of meta-psychic power that could screen Highers from each other. Only Phobos knew what he was torturing him with to get him to work for them - he'd already killed his body off. "Is that what you're planning to do to me?" He asked, trying to see if there were any more globes laying about. 


	8. Part 8

Phobos grunted and made a dismissive hand gesture, not even bothering to look at him. "You're too annoying to keep around." 

"And yet you claim you're not one of my ex-wives?" Again, a joke that zoomed over his partially fleshed head. Bob caught a small, dark movement out of the corner of his eye, and knew instantly what it was a - a little snake. A garter snake probably, one of those tiny cute ones, black with a red racing stripe down its sides. 

He was pretty sure he felt it slip into his boot before Phobos ripped him out of Degei's realm and brought him here; it slithered out of his boot and into the cavern before the semi-liquid rock could solidify over his leg. It probably should have occurred to Phobos to look out for any snaky messengers Deggy may have sent, but he was so arrogant he probably thought he couldn't react that fast, nor would he bother - he was the Sweden of the Higher Realms, after all. But he was only neutral when you didn't invade his space, and maybe when you didn't kidnap his friends. 

Still, he was Degei, some sort of island god, minor league Higher - why should a heavy hitter like Phobos give a shit? 

Shen Yi was still trying to make contact with him, a distant voice of mental strain, but he knew if Phobos caught it he'd probably hurt him some more ( hard to believe - Shen Yi sounded pained enough ). So even though it was going to be tough going without breath, he started to sing. And really loud too; not just to test the acoustics of the place, but to really get on Phobby's nerves. "Save me, the heavens have opened, the storm is over, so let's start the parade - " 

Phobos cringed, bringing his disturbingly long hands to his flappy ears, and shouted, "Stop that infernal noise!" 

Nothing like Mr. Bungle to really get under people's skin right away. He decided to sing him a greatest hits sample ( overlooking the fact that you had to sell albums to have hits ), just to be that much more irritating. "I'm elated, I could cut you, and remove the sheath of your ignorance - " And while shouting that more than singing, he mentally sent to Shen Yi  *Hang in there - I'm not alone. Everyone only thinks I'm a fool.* 

Bob had to stop singing as Phobos gestured violently back at him, and he felt something like a knife twist in his gut, even beneath the stone. If he had any breath, it would have taken it away. "I said shut up!" 

He had to give himself a moment to recover - the pain reverberated through his body like an echo in this cave - but now that he knew it annoyed him that much, how could he stop? "Your lips say one thing but the drugs say another. How can I massage this intergalactic ulcer?" 

"I could rip your tongue out," Phobos sneered, looking over his shoulder at him. Well, not precisely looking - you needed eyes to look. 

"And I could grow it back, so what's the point in that?" 

"It would keep you quiet for a moment." 

"Yeah, but just a moment. Hardly worth the effort." 

Phobby's impressively wide and ugly mouth contorted in what he assumed to be an evil grimace ( even more disturbing than his far too skinny lips was the fact that he seemed to have absolutely no chin at all ), and he turned back to the hovering globe. The energy inside seemed to swirl more violently, and Bob knew exactly what he was doing - maybe he'd picked up on Shen Yi after all. 

"Hey, leave him the fuck alone!" When Phobos showed no sign of having paid any attention to him, he added, "I'm going to start singing the entire libretto of "Tommy" if you don't stop hurting him right this second!" 

Luckily, he didn't have to try and do a Roger Daltry trapped in a wall impersonation, as finally someone got off their big immortal ass and showed up. 

Phobby felt the spatial intrusion at the same time he did, and spun to face ( so to speak ) the intruder with his hands raised to fight, but it was a bigger gun than him coming in, and he never had a chance. He had almost turned completely around towards the rift when he went flying across the cavern at about mach ten, hitting the right side wall and going straight through it, plunging through the solid rock wall like it was made of marshmallow fluff. 

"Say cheese baby, we all love you," Bob sang, as the living rock around him died, becoming a fragile crust with no more weight than dried food on the bottom of a dirty plate. "But it's a cheap world and you don't exist." He pulled away from the wall, and what crust didn't fall away he brushed off. 

Eris stood near the end of the table, dressed in brown leather and looking like some odd cross between a hunter and a fashion model, but with her arms crossed over her chest and a dour frown on her otherwise inscrutable face, it was clear she was unimpressed by her nephew's choice of hideouts. "This is pathetic," she said. The understatement of the century. 

This was the plan all along, of course. Bob figured if he started nosing around, someone on the Ares team would come to shut him up or coerce him into joining their side. It seemed like a bloody obvious set up, but just because it was so perfectly obvious he was sure it would never occur to the arrogant Ares that it was a ruse, and not just Bob being a nosy dumbass. 

He also knew he could count on getting a snake - a failsafe tracking device - from Degei, although he hated using him like that, and he had no idea that Phobos wouldn't even wait for him to leave Degei's realm before grabbing him. Talk about stones. 

Osiris, still looking like Roy Batty with bird eyes, only now clad in a black leather outfit that made him look like an android working for the SS, approached the table as if in awe, eyes glued to the glowing globe containing the energies of Shen Yi. "Of course, yes, that's perfect," he gasped, reaching for it. 

Bob scowled, able to smell his craven avarice from here. "Ice pick," he said, making a bee line for the table. 

Sy screamed and grabbed his head with his clawed hands as the pain stabbed straight into his excuse for a brain, and he reeled back from the globe. 

"If you must fight, take it elsewhere," Eris said, sounding uninterested. She had yet to shift expression or position, and seemed to be waiting for Phobos to pull himself together and crawl out of the hole in the wall. Of course if he was smart he wouldn't - his Aunt could kick his ass eight ways 'til doomsday - but she had probably blocked off all the exits so he couldn't leave. He'd have no choice but to face her eventually. 

"Shen Yi's been tortured enough," Bob snapped, although he was aiming it at Sy - like Eris would give a shit. "Now back off or I'll teleport you to Griblitz." 

"Try it, exile," he growled, still grabbing his head protectively. "Why don't you think? What he did for them he could do for us." 

"He was violently disembodied against his will! He's a prisoner, Sy, and you are not going to use him like a tool, or reabsorb him for his power." 

"Oh no," Degei said sadly, materializing behind Bob. The little garter snake ( yep, he was right - black with a red stripe ) slithered across the floor and quickly joined Deggy, coiling up his leg and becoming a part of his body. "Poor Shen. No wonder he disappeared." 

Bob took the globe, and he felt the thank you of Shen Yi through the protective crystal as he handed the globe of Shen to Degei. "Take care of him." 

Deggy nodded solemnly as he took the globe. He was not death's gatekeeper, but he could take care of the dead ( and sort of dead ) quite well, and had no interest in exploiting them, unlike Sy. 

Sy snarled as he looked at him, lowering his arms, but from the way that vein in his temple throbbed, Sy still hurt. Aww, poor baby. "You're making a big mistake, Bob." 

"Neither the first time nor last," he admitted, turning away to face Deggy. he knew he was just here to get his snake, and had no real interest in the machinations going on. Degei's eyes looked even more luminous in the reflected light of Shen Yi. "Thanks for the save, mate." 

He shrugged, which looked like the snakes simply adjusting themselves on his shoulder blades, and said, "I guess you had other friends coming for you." 

"They're no one's friends. They came for him, not me." 

Deggy nodded, granting him that. He then whispered, in a voice like a snake hiss, "Are you sure you'll be okay here?" 

Bob couldn't help but smile. Deggy was worried about him, bless him. He leaned in, and whispered, "I know they think they got me beat power wise, and most of 'em do, but throwin' me down on the Human plane and strippin' me of my powers was the best thing that ever happened to me. 'Cause I had to learn to survive, and these pampered bastards never had to do that. So I got that on them no matter what." 

Deggy studied him for a moment, eyes very bright. "They never gave you your powers back, did they?" 

Bob grinned, and was about to admit that officially no, he just took them back anyways, but then he caught wind of the shift of Sy's thoughts, and he snapped his head around and growled, "Don't you even think about it." 

A black mamba reared up from Degei's head and spat a long and deeply intimidating hiss that made Sy take a step back. Even death gods paused at the idea of being attacked by a few thousand avatar serpents. 

Bob patted Deg's arm, palm scraping against his dry, scaled skin, and told him, "You'd better get Shen out of here - if he convinces Eris this is a good idea, we're screwed." 

He nodded, and said, "Drop by sometime. We never finished our tea." 

"Count on it, mate." 

Degei then disappeared into thin air, taking his snakes and the remaining energy of Shen Yi with him, robbing Sy of any attempt to rally Eris to his cause. To launch an attack on Degei himself in Kauvadra Hills  
was extremely risky - it wasn't so much the land of the dead as the land of mists and fog, shadows and snakes. All of it, in fact, was snakes; a living world made up entirely of serpents loyal beyond measure to their one true god. Even Eris, with all her power, would think twice about taking on an entire realm full of angry, poisonous fanatics. 

He felt Sy's eyes burning into him, and he turned around and gave him a snarky grin. "Ain't we all on the same side?" 

Sy raised a single pale blond eyebrow at him, not completely hiding his sneer. "Are we?" 

"Stop it," Eris said flatly, in a way that made it clear it was an order. "This can wait until later. Phobos has some questions to answer." 

Yes, this piss fight portion of the proceedings would have to wait until Phobos was gutted, grilled, and served. If he ever crawled out of his bloody hole. 

Man, some people - they could dish it out, but they just couldn't take it. 

23 

    The scream ripped through his mind like a buzzsaw, and Scott didn't jolt awake more than he was thrown headlong into consciousness. He was on his feet, bringing a hand up to his visor, before he realized he was actually awake, and not wearing his visor. 

He cursed quietly and closed his eyes as he took off the glasses he derisively called his "sleep goggles" and put them on the nightstand, finding by touch his visor. He barely had it on by the time he stumbled out the bedroom door, into the hallway. Only when the soles of his feet touched the cool wooden floor did he realize he was barefoot, and his mind remained so sleep fogged he had to glance down and check that he was wearing clothes. Yes, good - he wasn't one of those people who slept naked anyways, it was just best to be aware of how many clothes you actually had on. 

And now reality was starting to rush in; in spite of the sleep goggles and being barefoot, he had the same clothes on he was wearing earlier, as he hadn't bothered to change out before laying down. Well he was only going to get an hour or so of z's, then he was going back down to the lab to check on Jeannie ... 

Scream. She screamed - that was her. Shit. 

His heart was triphammering as he ran for the elevator, and he only paused as he saw several of the telepathic kids peeking out from the doors of their rooms. The oldest of them all asked, "What's happening, Mr. Summers?" 

He knew exactly who it was from her icy cool British accent alone. It was amazing how many of these kids he could identify without actually looking at them. "I'm not really sure, Emma, but it's all right. Everybody go back to bed ... until further notice." He really didn't know what to tell them - he was sleep lagged and scared shitless, especially since he now realized he hadn't heard the scream with his ears; it was in his mind. That's why all the telepaths were up, they heard it too. 

Emma made a disdainful noise - you could tell she was upper class private school in every single one of her mannerisms - but he didn't bother to look back and make sure they obeyed as he dove into the nearest elevator, and tried to will it to the lower levels faster. He kept thinking in his mind, "Jean? Jean please respond. Jean?" 

He was not telepathic; he just had a telepathic link with Jean that was extremely one sided - he couldn't send her a thought unless she was already in his head. But because the mental scream came from her, he picked it up too. There were some real drawbacks to being the purely receptive one in a relationship. 

The elevator seemed slower than normal, but he knew it was probably just his own perceptions as the door finally slid aside, and he rushed to the lab. Of course she might not be there now, but since that was where he last saw her, it seemed like the logical place to start. 

"Jean?" He asked hopefully, as the door opened on the brightly lit lab. Even though he was hoping for the best ( whatever that could possibly be ), he had a hand raised to his visor, just in case. 

Nothing seemed amiss, not at first. Logan was still laid out on the far table where he last saw him, the monitors bleeping and breaking up the otherwise pristine silence, and everything was neat and in its place. But where the hell was Jean? 

He moved into the room warily, unjustifiably paranoid, and that's when he noticed the shadow on the floor, on the far side of Logan's table. But it wasn't a shadow - it was a body. 

"Jean!" He raced to her, kneeling beside her as he took her face in his hands. Her face was slack with unconsciousness, and she seemed extremely pale, her lips a bloodless pink, the shadows beneath her eyes as dark as bruises. Her skin felt cold beneath his hands, like she'd been in a refrigerator. 

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the nearest table, still searching her visually for any sign of injury. She looked perfectly fine, just out cold in the most literal sense of the term. 

The door opened, and the Professor appeared. "What happened, Scott?" 

"I don't know, I'm still trying to figure that out," he admitted, turning on the monitors. At least he knew how to do that much. 

The Professor's wheelchair glided over, the barely audible electric hum seemingly loud in the small room, and he looked between Jean and Logan. He had dark circles under his eyes, but since he was still wearing the dark grey suit he was wearing earlier, Scott figured he hadn't gotten any sleep yet either. 

"Logan's back," the Professor noted, with some surprise. 

Scott turned, expecting Logan to be sitting up and glaring at them in his usual good mood, but Logan was still flat out on the table. Then he realized what the Professor meant - the gash on Logan's arm, and the subsequent black veins, were gone, as were the deep bruises on his chest and the various injuries on his face and neck; there was only a crust of dried blood to give the appearance that he was still hurt. According to the readouts, his vital signs looked to be back to normal - well, for him. Some mutants had really odd vital signs; that one Logan brought in last, Sun, the gender metamorph, turned out to have two hearts, as well as superfluous versions of every hormone secreting gland you could name. He knew that because Jean found it fascinating, and he got to hear all about it over both lunch and dinner. And there was nothing like hearing about pituitary glands to put you off your feed. "He's not conscious." 

"No," the Professor admitted, his brow furrowing in concentration as he stared through Logan. "But he could be." 

Scott wasn't sure he understood that, but then telepaths had their own language. "Huh?" 

"He's choosing to remain unconscious." Fine lines bunched in the corners of his eyes as he pondered that, and then he turned his ice blue gaze on Jean. "She's submerged." 

Scott didn't want to have ask "Huh" again, so he just waited for Xavier to fill him in. 

"I think she's suffered some tremendous psychic shock." 

"Like what? And how?" 

The Professor considered that a moment before he shook his head, scowling in frustration. "I'm not sure." 

"Was she attacked?" That's what he was afraid of, and he didn't care that he wasn't a telepath; he'd hunt the bastard down and blast him straight into next year. No one hurt her, not while he was still alive and kicking. 

"I'm not picking up any trace of that ..." Still frowning, his eyes scudded from Jean's face to Logan's, and Scott turned, feeling a sudden but not unfamiliar anger towards Logan. 

"Did he have something to do with this?" 

The Professor glanced up at him, giving him that stern "you know better" look he had seen a dozen times before. "Logan would never hurt her, Scott. You know that." 

"Do I? He'd hurt the rest of us without blinking." 

Xavier's frown deepened the lines in his face. "No he wouldn't." Briefly, his expression transformed into one of bleak humor,and he said, "You never did settle this, did you?" 

Scott grimaced and stared down at Logan, fighting back the urge to just haul off and punch him - that would make him conscious. "But he had something to do with this, didn't he? It's a hell of a coincidence he's no longer dying, but she's comatose. It's like they ... " His voice dropped as the thought occurred to him. " ... switched places." That couldn't possibly be, could it? No ... besides, Jean would never do something that stupid. Three Logans still weren't worth one of her. 

But she had some kind of soft spot for this asshole, didn't she? She seemed so distraught when she thought he was actually dying ... oh god, she couldn't have risked her life for him, could she have? 

( Or maybe not oh god. Had Bob made him an atheist yet? ) 

"That's not what happened," Xavier said, still frowning between Logan and Jean. "But Jean isn't going to idly sit by and watch someone die if she can stop it in some way." 

Okay, that was true - Logan or not, he didn't know anyone with a greater sense of compassion than Jean. That was one of the things he loved about her. "So what did happen?" Scott grabbed one of her cold hands, and tried to warm it between his. He hoped she knew he was here, waiting for her. 

Xavier shook his head in frustration. "I don't know. I think I'll have to find out." 

Scott raised an eyebrow at him, wondering how he planned to do just that - and if it would put him in the same danger that caught Jean. 

24 

    The funny thing was, he went from one lab straight into another. But they sort of appeared as before and after - before the hurricane hit, and after. 

This lab had been attacked: instruments and trays lay scattered and broken across the floor, while metal cupboard doors were so deeply dented they were warped, some just hanging on by a single hinge. A freestanding cabinet that had been welded to the floor had been torn out and thrown across the room, spilling out its contents like entrails. 

And Logan sat crosslegged on an exam table, head in his hands in a posture of defeat and frustration. 

"Did you have to take it out on your own mind?" Xavier wondered. Despite the trappings, it was Logan's mind, and he had inadvertently taken his rage out on himself. 

Logan looked at him, a sour expression on his face. "Yeah. It's my fucking fault." 

"How so?" Xavier bent down and picked up a warped metal tray, which he placed on a dented counter. It was interesting to note that Logan had never used his claws; he had simply taken out his frustration with his fists and his feet, never giving into his more vicious side. 

Logan shook his head, and hid his face in his hands. "If she was sensible, she'd just have let me go. I ain't worth it." 

"Worth what?" 

"Saving." 

Being a telepath did have some perks, such as being able to easily see through a person's bluster. Logan walked around with a full protective suit of armor, the better to keep people at a distance, and while it was easy to mistake it for arrogance ( in fact, he was happy for people to think that ), at heart, Logan ached - he often believed he was the animal some people accused him of being, and then he wondered if what had been done to him was his fault; classic victim mentality. Maybe if he'd been stronger, faster, meaner, smarter, or simply a better person, none of this would have happened. Maybe, if he simply gave up, the world would be a better place. It was always difficult to look at a man as stubborn, flippant, and aggressive as Logan, and realize he was a classic depressive. "Jean would disagree with you," he pointed out. "And so would I." 

He simply grunted, a dismissive sound that skirted the edge of being offensive. Xavier ignored it, because he knew Logan just wanted him to go away. "What did she do?" 

After a moment, Logan said, "She said something about telekinetically jump starting my healing factor, but maybe something went wrong, or she was lyin' about how it would effect her, I don't know, but all I know is I probably killed her." 

"You did no such thing. And she's still alive." Telekinetic jump start? He tried to work out the logistics of that, and wasn't sure he could. It was an intriguing idea, though. 

Logan looked up at him, and he appeared to be so surprised and lost in thought he forgot to hate himself for a second. "She is?" 

"Is that why you've remained unconscious?" Xavier was pretty sure he could hear the electronic beeps of monitors and the murmur of Scott's voice very faintly, as if at the end of the outside corridor. But since he was in Logan's mind, this was his perceptions; that was the real world he refused to go back to, even though he had to know damn well he could. But he had stayed here as penance, or simply because he wasn't ready to face the outside world. 

"Is she all right?" Logan asked, ignoring his question. 

Xavier tried to go out of his way to avoid the emotional lives of both students and the adults on the premises, because they deserved their privacy, he was not a voyeur, and frankly all that could come of it was trouble. But being in Logan's mind he could not ignore the feelings this exchange prompted, and he resolved to forget it as soon as he was back in his own mind, even thought it undoubtedly troubled him. Logan feeling that much for Jean could only lead to continuing troubles between him and Scott ... especially if it was reciprocated. "She seems to have suffered a great psychic shock, but I'm not sure why. I came here hoping you could tell me why." 

Logan unfolded his legs and let them dangle over the side of the table, resting his palm on his knees. He looked both concerned and determined. "Could pain have caused it?" 

"Pain?" 

"My healin' hurts. I mean I'm used to it, it's like the pain when I pop my claws, you know? An every day pain; just somethin' that happens. But maybe 'cause she amped it, it was more than usual. I could handle it - it was bad, but I've had worse - but I don't think she was ready for it. I mean ... I guess she felt it too, I'm not sure ... maybe that wasn't it. As soon as I realized she was feelin' it too I tried to break the connection, but it wasn't in time. I don't think she wanted to let go." 

"She probably didn't." Logan wasn't the only terminally stubborn person around here. 

"Why is 'Clops the team leader? She's got more balls than he does." 

He smiled faintly. "You tell him that. Or better yet, don't." 

Logan sat with his head cocked, like he was listening to the sounds of the outside world, but Xavier knew he wasn't. He was searching around in his mind for something else. After a moment, he said, "I think Bob once said something about doors being left open in the mind - that once you go in, it kinda leaves a passage. Am I making any sense at all?" 

Xavier nodded, not surprised he was getting used to all these mindscapes and their special rules. How many telepaths had he had in his head? And that was not even counting the special cases of Bob or Heydon. "Yes. Connections are left, which is what I believe you're indicating." 

"Yes. Do you think I can go after her?" 

Xavier studied him a moment, considering what he was asking. "You think you could find the connection between her mind and yours?" 

"I'm a good hunter. If it's out there, I'll find it." 

It didn't matter that Logan wasn't psionically inclined - he believed that. It was also possible Bob had left things in his mind, even if it was just residue, that Logan could put to some use. Logan was nothing if not resourceful. "She's submerged quite deep. How do you think you can help her?" Xavier hated to ask him that, but he had to. It was a nice idea, and certainly Logan would be happy if he could aid her in return, but how could he exactly? Even Xavier wasn't completely sure what he could do, except guide her back. 

"I don't know. But it's my pain, and she shouldn't suffer because of it. Maybe there's some way I can take it back. I was made for pain." 

Xavier stared at him, and wondered if Logan really understood what he had just said - "made for pain". Not born for it, or ready for it, but made, like he was a machine. It could have been simply a figure of speech, but he didn't think so; slips of the tongue - and the mind - could be very illuminating. Or, in this case, sadly revealing. Did Logan honestly think of himself more as a thing than a person? "I don't know if it's that simple, Logan." He meant that for what Logan had said, and for what he had meant. How bitterly ironic that a man who could get past any physical injury had a psychic wound that never seemed to heal. 

He snorted humorously. "I'm sure it ain't, Chuck - nothing is. But I think I owe her this one. And look, if it doesn't bring her back, you could ... like, follow the trail, right? Come in to help?" 

"I wouldn't want to channel my telepathy through your mind." 

"Why? If I could handle Bob's energy, yours'd be a breeze." 

Xavier had to give him that. If comparisons could be made, Bob was a nuclear furnace, and he was simply a sulfur match. It was actually a little humbling to think about it in those terms. "I hope it won't come to that." 

Logan nodded. "Me too." He jumped off the table, and said, "I'll try and let you know if I can." 

"I'll be waiting." He had a sinking feeling this would all be in vain, but it was better to let Logan try and fail  
then to deny him and let this eat away at him. He had too many things eating away at him as it was. 

But he didn't think he was going to immediately mention this to Scott. 

25 

    "Do you come out, or do I drag you out?" Eris asked, sounding remarkably bored. 

Osiris looked askance at Bob, and sneered, "Why are you making that noise?" 

"Gotta entertain myself in some fashion," he replied casually, crossing his arms over his chest. He then went back to humming "Shut Your Fucking Face, Unclefucker", because, for some odd reason, Sy reminded him of it. Bob was pretty sure Sy was no fan of "South Park", though. Or anything, actually - Sy was not the type to like anything, just abhor things with greater or lesser intensity. And he knew that, right now, he was at the top of his shit list. Good. 

Phobby finally crawled out of the deep hole in the wall, and clear fluid was pouring from his slightly dislocated jaw. If you didn't know any better, you might think he was drooling like a Great Dane with rabies, but in fact that was blood - a lot of these Highers had clear fluid that sort of worked in lieu of blood. He made several painful noises as he did so, as his Aunt - even though it just looked like she put him through the wall - had hurt him very badly. The fact that he was family wasn't going to spare him from her wrath; in fact, it probably made it worse, because while Ares and Eris were usually as close as twins, she loathed his children, and the feeling was generally mutual. But while they were all bosom buddies, they couldn't come out and be outright nasty to each other. Of course now, the gloves were off, and Phobby was probably going to end up a stain on the bottom of Eris's shoe. Bob was trying to muster up some sympathy, but after what he had done to Shen Yi, it just wasn't happening. 

He crawled out on the table and sat back on his haunches, his silver and gold embroidered robe ( how fey and so like his dad ) now stained dark with his water like blood. "I'm not going to tell you - " 

"Yes you are," Eris said. 

Phobby made a high pitched squeal and grabbed his head, but even through the pain, he shouted, "I don't know where he is! He went away and just said he'd be back!" 

Eris glanced at him, and Bob said, "You know he's telling the truth." 

"When is he coming back?" Sy demanded. 

He was not inclined to answer him, but since Sy seemed to be Eris's toady, Phobos wasn't so damaged he hadn't figured out it was talk now or suffer through a feeling not unlike a red hot nail gun being fired up his ass. "I'm not sure - he didn't tell me that either. I was just supposed to hold things down for him until his return." 

Eris glanced at him again. His prison within a liar demon had given him expert status in figuring out when anyone - Higher to Human - was lying. He was Bob, King of Bullshit, and it was so fucking funny it was unbelievable. "True again. He's not so stupid he's gonna lie to you, darlin'. He knows you could have his guts for garters with a snap of your fingers." 

Eris frowned at Phobos, and Bob did feel a little sorry for the sad sack of shit now. She wasn't really mad at Phobos more than she was mad at his dad - but Phobby was going to pay either way. "And Ares wasn't so stupid that he was going to stick around for this." 

Sy cocked his head at her in a distressingly bird like manner. "You think he was tipped off?" 

Eris made a very tiny noise of disdain. "He has no gift for foresight. Of course he was warned." 

"Where's Kumiho?" Bob asked Phobby. 

All of them - Phobos, Sy, and Eris alike - openly stared at him. Well, again, it was assumed on Phobby's part. "You didn't know?" Bob asked innocently, happy to have dropped this little info bomb on them. 

"That little bitch," Sy hissed, with such venom Bob wondered how well he had known her. 

"The trickster is with him?" Eris asked, shifting her gaze to Phobos. "Is this true?" 

Phobos looked ( so to speak ) up, and snarled, blood oozing from his distended jaw, "They'll need a sacrifice to end this, Bob, and it will be you - you're not of us. You're an exile, and you're expendable." 

Bob gave him a humorless, predatory smile. He hadn't told him anything he didn't already know. "Maybe so, but I'm not the guy who's about to get his ass vaporized." 

Phobby looked ( theoretically ) at his Aunt, and Bob knew, if he had bothered to manifest eyes, they'd have bulged out of their sockets. "No, I can help you, I - " 

"I don't work with traitors," Eris said blandly, and with the merest twitch of her eyebrow, Phobos violently disincorporated. 


	9. Part 9

It wasn't anything like an explosion though, where his guts were splattered all over the cavern; no, it just looked like he imploded on the molecular level. He collapsed inside himself, becoming a small point of light that also everted itself and disappeared - a microscopic black hole that consumed its own gravity well, and vanished. Not a speck of Phobos was left behind, not even the dribbles of blood left on the table. 

"Kumiho working with Ares changes things," Eris said, as if she just hadn't wiped a god completely off the face of the map. 

"No, it doesn't," Bob instantly interjected. "Don't you get it? Ares idea of chaos usually involves massive bloodshed. Kumiho's probably been his agent in charge of upper level fucking around. She's good with chaos - it's her raison d'être." 

Both Eris and Sy faced him, Eris with her typically blank expression, Sy with his typical suspicious one. "Are you implying she's the driving force?" She wondered. 

Bob could only shrugged a single shoulder. "It still could be Ares's show. But if he didn't have her, it'd surely have been closed by now." 

A corner of Eris's mouth quirked down - horrors! She almost expressed an emotion - and finally she said, "I must consider this." 

"Do it without me," Bob told her. "I'm going home." 

"Your home is the Higher Realms," Eris replied. 

"Not any more. So, it's been real, but sayonara." 

"Coward," Sy hissed. 

That made Bob laugh. Oh yes, he put himself in harm's way to catch these buggers, and he was the coward. Sure. "Comin' from you, that really means something," he said sarcastically. 

What really bothered Bob was where Ares and Kumiho may have gone. They could have been hiding out in any dimension, but Bob had a feeling they'd go not so much where they couldn't be found, but where whatever damage they did wouldn't matter so much to the Highers, therefore not attract their attention. 

Earth, in other words. 

Bob transported himself home, and wondered where he should start looking for gods in hiding, planning a massive cataclysm. 

Decisions, decisions. 

26 

    It was just like walking down the steel corridors of Xavier's underground levels. In fact, that's just what he was doing. 

But Logan got the sense he should head this way, so he did, hoping it would lead him to Jean. 

All semblance of reality began to melt away as he approached the end of the hall - darkness swarmed in like a cloud of insects, became a physical thing he had to slog through, night given the presence and form of molasses. He struggled through it, feeling great resistance, like it was deliberately trying to hold him back, but it just pissed him off and made him work harder. Finally he fell through, literally - there was a brief sensation of falling, and then he landed face first on the ground, nearly getting a mouthful of dirt. Dirt? 

He looked up, and found himself outside, maybe in the back garden. But it looked altered somehow - bigger, for one, and there were some plants here he was sure he hadn't seen before. He pushed himself up to his knees and looked around. Birds sang in the lowering willows and blooming cherry and pear trees,  and the sky was a cloudless and perfect blue, like the sea. The air smelled so strongly of roses and lilies he sneezed, but real flowers were still better than perfume; he was sure perfume was designed specifically to kill him. 

"Who's there?" Jean asked. Her voice seemed to emanate from behind a huge explosion of red and white flowered weigela bushes. 

"It's me," he said, getting to his feet and brushing dirt off the knees of his jeans before proceeding. 

She was sitting in a lawn chair on the other side of the impromptu hedge created by the shrubs, and looked at him with some surprise. She was reading a paperback book, but had it resting open on her knee; ironically, it was titled "Finder". "Logan?" For some reason she seemed to eye his clothes before she asked, "Are you really here?" 

"I seem to be. Nice place." 

"Oh, it's my so called happy place," she admitted, with a grimace of embarrassment. "When you're first learning to use your telepathy, you sort of clear out a little space deep inside your mind to retreat into when things get a little too heavy. A safe place." 

He nodded. He could use a little happy place all his own. "I'm sorry I sent you here." 

"You sent - " She had to think about it for a moment. "Oh. Well, no, it wasn't your fault, Logan. It was a reflex; it kicks in when ..." 

"Things get too heavy." 

"Yeah." She rubbed her forehead, like she had a headache. "I'm sorry, I think I'm a little tired." 

"I bet." He crouched beside her chair, and said, "You can't say that isn't my fault." 

She shook her head, then gave him a look that was infinitely weary. "It was mine. I wasn't properly prepared for what would happen. And then I think I got caught up in the telepathic equivalent of a feedback loop - I couldn't quite find my way out." 

"Until this kicked in." 

"Right. A failsafe escape hatch. I'll be okay, I just need a little time to recover." After a pause, she admitted, "I guess I never considered that it would be so painful." 

"Maybe if you told me what exactly what you were gonna do, I coulda warned ya." He instantly hated how ungrateful that sounded, and scowled at the thought. "Naw, that ain't right. I doubt it would have occurred to me to warn you." It was reflex to reach out and take her hand, but she didn't object. It wasn't as warm as it had been earlier, but it wasn't ice cold. "I wish you hadn't have done it, Jean." 

She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "But you're back, aren't you? And not Rhedoc." 

"A good thing too. You should see how ugly those fuckers are." 

She smiled, and when their eyes held a little too long, she glanced away. "Why are you here, Logan?" 

"I want to bring you back." 

She patted the back of his hand idly, and gave him a kindly smile. "I'll be back soon, I just need some time. Tell the others not to worry." 

"It wasn't right for you to almost kill yourself to help me. I wanna give some of that back." 

She quirked up an eyebrow. "How?" 

Aw damn. He was hoping she might have some ideas there. "Honestly? I don't know. I was hopin' you could help me puzzle that out." 

Her smile remained kind, although he thought perhaps a hint of condescension crept into it. "I'm not Rogue. I wouldn't even know how to begin doing that." 

"Well, this can't be a complete one way street, can it?" He then realized what he just said. "Oh shit, it is, isn't it?" 

"As far as I know. I'm impressed you made it here, though." 

"Just followed the passage." 

She looked at him curiously. "We're connected, are we? Well, I guess we would be by now." 

He was pretty sure he was missing something in this conversation. "Connected to a lot of guys?"  He said it flippantly, like a joke, but he was curious. 

She gave him a haughty look, and he knew she considered making a joke of it, but at the last minute she decided against it. "The Professor, of course, but he's such a powerful telepath I'm not sure he counts. Then there's Scott, and now you, it seems." 

He couldn't help it - he rolled his eyes, weary of Scott even though he was just mentioned, and she said, "Well you're not exactly connection free, you know." 

That made him stare at her. "What do you mean?" 

"Bob." Oh boy - he really hadn't wanted to hear that. As he let his chin drop to his chest, she said, " You didn't know?" 

"Nah, I figured as much, I just don't like bein' reminded of it." 

"I understand. But you realize he's the first person we think of when all this inexplicable stuff happens." 

"Well, yeah - he eats the impossible for breakfast." 

"That's a good way to put it." She paused, and the way she squeezed his hand, he guessed she was about to ask him something she was nervous about. " I always wanted to ask you ... when you had Bob's power, back on Dis ... what was that like?" 

He gazed at her quizzically, wondering if there was some connection he didn't realize. "Uh, well ... it was weird. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but it was like bein' the heart of a star. I mean, it was like bein' beyond invincible, whatever that is." He knew he wasn't be especially articulate, but even in retrospect it was hard to put into the words. He was sure he didn't completely grasp the experience even now. 

"I know what you mean," she agreed, sitting forward. Her eyes were shining with something akin to - but not exactly like - lust. "I felt like that when I was under Camaxtli's influence. I felt like ... an inferno. It was an incredible rush." 

"It was, yeah," he agreed, wondering how the feelings compared. Being a proxy agent was one thing; being the god (?) was another. "But I'm glad I ain't him." 

"Why do you say that? Well, beyond the obvious reasons." She grinned slyly, and he couldn't help but grin back. Yeah, the ex-wives thing would be a real bitch, not to mention all those goddamn kids of his. 

"It was just too intoxicatin', you know? I see how you could let it get the better of you." 

"Yes, I suppose," she agreed, but with great reluctance. She knew it was a valid point, but she hated to admit it. 

"I mean, I know he seems pretty free wheelin', but he must have an awful lot of control not to really let loose and abuse it." 

"He could control the world." 

Logan wondered if she was talking about Bob or Camaxtli, but he didn't ask. "Yeah. See, if I was him, I'd fix everything." He paused, then was forced to admit, under the intensity of her gaze, "No, that's a lie. I'd destroy it all; I'd get rid of everything. I'd hate myself for it later, but - " 

"There's so much evil in the world," she sighed, nodding. "And so much has been done to you." 

Mentally, he reeled a bit. He didn't want to talk about that."It just seems so unfixable." He wasn't completely sure if he was talking about the world or himself, or both. 

"All we can do is try and change that, one step at a time." 

He nodded, and felt very awkward. Suddenly, he wanted to leave. "As long as you're sure you're okay, I'll go back and tell the others. But if you ain't back in a few hours Xavier's probably comin' for you." 

She nodded, not at all surprised by that, but she kept a hold of his hand. "I just didn't realize how much pain was involved. You're stronger than I thought." 

He supposed that was a compliment, but it didn't feel like one. "It's just pain. I live with it all the time." 

"I'm sorry." 

He just shrugged - what could he say? He was sorry too. 

"One more thing, Logan - who's Mariko?" 

He felt a dull knife twist in his gut, and he tried not to let the pain show on his face. Oh god, how did she know about her? Did he mention her? Maybe when he was delirious - he didn't remember a lot of what he said when he was flat out. 

"She - " He couldn't tell her; he didn't want to tell her. Not only was every mention of her name a little twist of the knife, but it was like he was giving her away. Other people took Mariko from him, and he had so few memories of her left - he wanted to protect what he had of her; he didn't want to cede the faintest bit to others, even to someone like Jean. He had never wanted to with Bob either, but Bob already knew, and Logan knew he would give her back if he could. " - she was a woman I knew a long time ago." He couldn't say wife - it was like a secret talisman, or something that was in danger of crashing into his reality if he said it often enough. He had to swallow back a sudden lump in his throat that made him feel like he was strangling. "She died." 

He closed his eyes tight to hold back a sudden surge of tears. He was not crying in front of Jean, goddamn it! Not about this, not now, no matter how much it hurt. After all, the physical pain was always worse, right? 

But obviously he wasn't doing a good enough job of hiding it, or maybe because this was her mind and she was a telepath. She let go of his hand only to put her arms around him, and stroke the back of his head. "I'm sorry, Logan," she said quietly, as if speaking too loudly would somehow make it worse. 

His first instinct was to shove her away - he didn't want this, and he didn't want pity; he just wanted to run. But then he sagged into her embrace and buried his head into the side of her neck, breathing in her scent and willing himself not to cry. "Me too," he finally said. 

And he meant it, more than she could possibly know. 

27 

    It was so weird to have a happy ending, even though he failed. Well, failed in the sense that he was unable to do anything for Jean. 

But Xavier accepted that she just needed some time away in her "happy place" - Scott didn't like it, though. Xavier got him to agree to give Jean a couple hours, and if she showed no sign of obvious improvement, he'd go in after her. Scott still wasn't happy, and still blamed Logan, to which Logan could only shrug, offering up a mental and hearty "fuck you" to him. By keeping it to himself and not saying it aloud, he felt he had started paying back Jean, at least in a small way. Okay, it didn't sound like much, but he really wanted to tell Scott to go fuck himself. 

Or anyone really. Jean was cool about the Mariko thing, but whenever something slipped under his skin like that, whenever something happened that made him feel weak ... he couldn't bear it. His first instinct was to lash out at something - anything - if only to take his mind off of it for a while. He wondered if he'd ever be able to think about Mariko without feeling like someone had slipped a knife blade between his ribs. 

Of course, Scott did give him something else to worry about - the Organization and earthquake girl. Xavier still couldn't find her on Cerebro, and that wasn't good. Certainly having the Org stray so close to the school couldn't be good. He wondered if that was their little warning after the whole Sloane incident. 

He intended to go out and do some searching of his own, as soon as he got some clothes on ( well, he still had his jeans, they were just torn and blood spattered ) and maybe caught a bite to eat, because he was starving. He couldn't remember the last time he ate, and if that alone wasn't bad enough, he always needed some fuel after his healing factor had been hard at work. And then he had to figure out if his bike was still by a road in Michigan; probably not. It must have gotten lifted by now. Damn it. 

He was walking down the corridor, blissfully silent as it could only be in the early morning hours before the kids got up, and then he started to hear music, faint but growing louder. He recognized it instantly as the Tragically Hip, which was weird because only he knew who the fuck they were, nonetheless had anything of theirs. Shit - it was coming from his room, wasn't it? 

As he padded in quickly, bare feet noiseless against the wooden floor, he realized he didn't have the CD in question. And then someone started singing, and he froze. "Everyone's got their breaking point. With me it's spiders; with you it's me. Thugs in perpetuity." 

Bob. Now he shows! 

Logan spun around, and wondered if he could just steal a shirt and someone's boots and get out of here before - 

"Hey Logan, where's you got to go?" Bob said suddenly, far too cheerful for this time of morning. 

He sighed, sent a very nasty thought his way, and stalked back to his room, wondering if he'd let him have just one punch for the sheer hell of it. 

Logan opened his door to find Bob lounging on his bed, propped up on pillows, a couple of paperbacks beside him and one in his hands. He was also wearing the swagman's hat with the corks dangling from the brim, the one he brought him as an Australian souvenir. "Motherless Brooklyn," he said, as Logan shut the door. "Kick ass book." 

"Yeah, it's good," he admitted, and walked over to his dresser to get a shirt. There was no point in asking Bob anything - he told you or he didn't. 

"So what's with the hiding of the books? You have remarkably good taste for a guy with your hairstyle. Fuck, this book you have in untranslated Japanese blew my mind. Didn't the author win a Nobel?" 

"I don't know. I was just lookin' it over before givin' it to Nariko." True enough - he found it in a used bookstore just outside Chinatown the last time he was here; he found the English language books there too. It had books in just about every language you could name. 

"Oh. Material morpher girl, right? How's her English comin' along?" 

He shrugged as he pulled a black t-shirt on. It smelled new, and probably was - god knows he hadn't kept any clothes here. The only stuff he left behind was stuff he couldn't wear out or carry in his coat pocket; he didn't need a lot of stuff. He still wasn't supremely comfortable with the idea of staying in one place, and having stuff. It seemed like tempting fate, asking for trouble. "I don't really know. She knows the seven words you can't say on television, though." 

"Ah, the important ones," he said, sitting up. He put Motherless Brooklyn and the other books on the nightstand, but kept wearing the damn silly hat. Somehow the CD changed from Tragically Hip to A Perfect Circle, but since it was far from the weirdest thing that had happened around Bob, he didn't even question it.  
"You seem remarkably energized. I thought you'd drag your sorry can in here." 

"You heard about the Rhedoc thing, huh?" he sat on the edge of the bed, and started putting on socks - also new - that he'd also pulled from the drawer. He was willing to bet there was boots waiting in the cabinet too. 

"Yeah, and I gotta apologize about that, mate." 

He shrugged. "You weren't around. That's cool, we dealt with it." 

"Nah, I mean havin' a hit put on you - obviously that was my fault. But I didn't know." 

Logan straightened up and looked at him. Bob was sitting farther down on the bed and looked serious, but it was hard to say for certain with that damn silly hat on. "Say what? Who put a hit on me? I was just attacked by some stupid ass demon." 

"Yes, one native to Mexico." 

Logan shook his head in frustration. "What difference does it make where they're initially from? They spread out." 

"Not some demons. Some are very specialized to their region, and Rhedocs are a great example of that. They need a hot place with lots of dark places to hide in, preferably caves. In cooler temperatures they weaken and die; that's why they're only native to some of the desert wastelands in Mexico and Central America. None has ever gotten more North than Texas. Well, not of its own accord." 

Logan sighed heavily, and said, "Tell me what's going on before I kill you." 

Bob grinned at him. "Nice to see you're back to your old sunshiny self. Well, to bust it down for ya - it was a set up. Someone threw a Rhedoc down in your path specifically to kill you, and then they played some vamps so they'd sidetrack you from getting help - " 

"Wait, wait - you're saying that was all a set up? I stumbled upon that demon by accident, and I'm pretty sure Maddie didn't hit me with her car on purpose." 

"Yes, but a lot of separate things were manipulated so they'd collide on you." 

"Who would do that? And how, and why?" 

" 'Cause some powerful mucky muck found out you were my avatar. Sorry about that, mate." 

Logan continued to glare at him, not sure what else to do. "How would they figure that out?" 

"I don't know. I still haven't figured that one out." Bob finally took off the damn hat, and put it down on the crumpled bedspread. "The kicker was not only the Rhedoc in Upper Michigan, but the vampire gang looking to free Qanlon. Now there's a big continuity error." 

"Why?" 

"Qanlon's pea gravel. Yeah, he was trapped in a statue, but no one told the council planners in Singapore, who accidentally blew him up along with a couple of old buildings to make way for a shopping mall about three years ago. Qanlon couldn't have promised those vamps anything . It makes me wonder what piece of ugly public statuary Kumiho used in Detroit or wherever the hell as Qanlon, to convince them this was the key to true undead immortality." 

"Kumiho? I'm guessing she's not some Korean chick you pissed off." 

Bob slapped him on the back and chuckled, as if he'd just told a screamer of a joke. "Leave it to you to get the nationality of the name right. You and your languages - gotta love it." 

"Bob," he said warningly, shrugging off his hand. The CD had jumped to Soul Coughing now, and he wondered if that was a coincidence. 

"Kumiho is a god, a trickster far more clever and malicious than Loki, which I think she proved by tryin' to kill you in two separate ways at the same time. Now that's planning." 

He shook his head, sure he was missing a crucial point. "If she's a god, why not just strike me dead or whatever?" 

Bob actually looked surprised. "What? Where's the fun in that?" 

The worst part was, Logan was sure he was serious. 

Bob then shrugged and went on. "Besides, I think they wanted to make it look like it just happened, and wasn't an open declaration of war." 

"So why make it so obvious and clumsy?" 

"Because I'm sure it didn't seem that way in the initial stages. What do they know of this dimension and low creatures? All they knew was Rhedocs were considered a hundred percent fatal, and Qanlon had the power to give some stupid vampires a really eternal eternity. Little details like place or origin and whether or not Qanlon's still trapped and in one piece were undoubtedly considered irrelevant. I'm sure they didn't consider the possibility you'd survive to tell anyone about all this anyways. They're gods, remember - therefore infallible." 

Logan scratched his head, certain he was missing more of the puzzle. Not odd around Bob. "Why kill me? Why not kill you? Or is that a stupid question?" 

"No. I mean, if Ares and Kumiho teamed up they got a good chance of rendering me a big smear on the pavement, but they don't really want to destroy me if they think there might be a chance of me bein' swayed over to their side. Takin' out my avatar would leave me unbalanced, and therefore swayable - well, in their opinion." 

"So why do all the gods want to kill you now?" 

He snickered. "Well, I think they've always wanted to wash their hands of me. But Fenrir was Loki's thing alone - I think he was planning a takeover of this realm before anyone else could get their hands on it, but to do that successfully I had to be out of the way; he knew me well enough to know I wouldn't barter for it. In fact, it was the smartest thing he ever did comin' to me after the fact - I only exiled him. If Ares and Kumiho find him, he's a dead god. He tried to move in on their stuff before they did. Bad form." 

"And Ares and Kumiho want to take over this realm? What does that mean?" 

"It means make it more god friendly, which means no lower creatures to deal with." 

"Lower creatures bein' demons..?" 

"And Humans, yeah." 

Logan sighed, and hung his head in his hands. It was amazing how one problem always led to an even greater problem. His stomach grumbled loudly, demanding food now, but he wasn't sure he really had an appetite anymore. 

"Hey, why don't I zap us to the place I know in Sydney? Great Japanese food - I know you'd like that. And considering the time difference, I know you could get a beer." 

That did sound good; he needed a beer. He needed several beers, and perhaps some heavy class three narcotics. "You're not just here to apologize, are you?" 

"No. I was hopin' I could get your help. Your help to start - I don't know if I need the others to help yet or not - " 

"It's gonna have to wait, okay? The Org's at it again, after this girl that can cause earthquakes. I gotta find her before they do." 

"Chuck can't pinpoint her with his doohickey?" 

"No - for some reason she's not comin' up." 

"Hmm." Bob said it in such a strange way Logan looked up, and found Bob frowning into space, obviously considering something. 

"What?" 

"I bet she's not a mutant - I  bet she's a Xerxis demon. Tell him to call the search off; this is gambit three." 

"What do you mean?" 

Bob turned towards him, and grimaced painfully before telling him, "You dead or dying, and your friends - come now, play along - distracted by their own injured and dying, or off on a wild goose chase for a mutant that doesn't exist. I bet even the Organization got played here. It couldn't have happened to a nicer group." 

"What if you're wrong?" 

"Do you think I'm wrong?" 

Logan scowled. He was actually going to make him say it, wasn't he? "No." 

Bob scoffed. "I mean, come on - whose luck is that bad that all this shit could happen at once?" 

Logan stared at him. 

"Okay mate, you have had a run of some pretty shitty luck, but even this is outside your bounds." 

He wasn't sure about that, but there was never much point in arguing with Bob, not unless you liked punching yourself in the nuts. "So what do you need my help with?" 

"Findin' Ares and Kumiho. I figure they're hiding on one of the Earthly planes, but probably not this one, 'cause they know diddly squat about the demon fauna around here. Course, why would they bother to know? That's lower shit for shitty lowers." 

Logan was really lost now. "How can I help you? Gods and shit are your territory, not mine, nonetheless other dimensions." 

"Well - and again, I'm sorry - you're my avatar. And I know I'll need your help to shut them down." 

"Can't you get another avatar?" 

Bob smiled sadly at him, like he understood his wariness but really couldn't help him. "They're not exactly a dime a dozen. I can't put a want ad in the paper. Besides, you bring somethin' to the table, which is more than most avatars." 

"Claws." 

"Well, yeah, but mostly I was thinkin' of the whole power amplifyin' thing. Cool beans." 

It took him a moment to realize what he was saying, but then he remembered. After that whole other dimension/Old Ones business, Bob had said what? "Alone, I could change reality. Together, we could destroy the world." So he wasn't kidding about that, was he? "Are we gonna destroy a world?" 

Bob gave him that billion watt sarcastic smile. "Do you wanna?" 

Logan wished he knew whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. 

To Be Continued Next Story..... (Yes, I'm a cruel bastard. Sorry.) 


End file.
